Pale Blue Dot
by Varjak76
Summary: Voyager encounters a generational colony ship housing over seventy thousand people that is too badly damaged to reach its intended destination. Meanwhile, the Pathfinder Project discovers they have a very small window to potentially bring the crew of Voyager home, but Voyager itself would be left behind. An alternative series finale to "Endgame."


_If anyone had told me even two months ago that the first story I would post on this site would be for Star Trek: Voyager, I would have helped them inside because the sun was clearly frying their brain. Yet here we are._

_This started when Steve Shives did a Trek, Actually video to determine who is Star Trek's most reckless time traveler. Janeway was mentioned in the video for her actions in the series finale, Endgame, and her extremely weak and selfish motivations to travel in time. This led Frank Voigt to ask Steve how he would have improved the Voyager finale, so Steve made another video in which he provided two options. One was a patch for Endgame that provided Janeway with a much better motivation to time travel, and the other was an outline for a completely different story called Pale Blue Dot._

_I haven't watched a single episode of Voyager since the finale first aired, but I tried to keep characters in character, to the extent that characters on Voyager actually had character, and Memory Alpha was a big help with backstory and details. I ran out of time to do more than polish the story, because I wanted this posted for Steve's birthday and he had to go and be born in early May instead of late June, so the time crunch was real. As it was, the story spiraled out of control on me and I ended up writing the last 4000 words today to get it done on time, and I had to end on a different scene that Steve suggested, because as beautiful a shot as that would have been, it didn't work right in prose and how the story developed, so the ending is slightly different. Still, it's got heart, humor, and in true Voyager fashion, a great big lump of technobabble in the middle to make everything work.  
_

_So, here it is. The finale that Voyager never would have done because it lacks explosions and violence and Borg. I'm sure people will be very vocal about it if they feel I didn't do the concept justice, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out regardless._

_Happy birthday, Steve, and enjoy._

* * *

"Receiving a distress call, Captain."

Captain Janeway sat up straighter, not that she had been slouching before but her demeanor immediately shifted from acceptably casual to all business, as did everyone else on the bridge; in one sentence the duty shift had changed from routine to possible emergency response, and everyone reacted accordingly. "On speaker, Mister Tuvok," she ordered.

"The call is an automated signal with no voice message," Tuvok admitted. "However, the contents of the signal and the frequency the message is being transmitted on meet all the local criteria of a distress call, according to data we recently learned from The Hierarchy."

Janeway hid her scowl, not wanting to think of how that particular encounter had gone, even if all had worked out okay in the end. "Locate the source," she ordered, certain that the crew was already working on that very task.

After a moment, Tuvok reported, "I am able to approximate the signal's origin to this location," and sent the tactical display to the main viewscreen. On it, a blue line stretched forward into the distance, Voyager's path through the Delta Quadrant toward the Alpha Quadrant, and home. Several stars within a few light years of their path were also visible. To the right side of the screen, above their path along the galactic plane, was a red dot, flickering softly, near a yellow-orange star, just outside the system.

Tom Paris ran a quick calculation. "That system is seventy-eight minutes away at warp eight."

"I am unable to determine if there are any planets in the system," added Harry Kim, who wasn't seeing any of the typical indicators of gravity wells or other potential navigational hazards, not that he could definitively ascertain anything from this distance.

Janeway made her decision, not that there was any decision to be made. "Set intercept course," she ordered. "Yellow alert; we don't know what we're racing into. Try to hail them. We may be able to get a live person on the line. And inform engineering of the extended high warp requirements," she added, knowing that an hour at warp eight could strain the engines even under normal circumstances, and Torres was still keeping a close eye on the warp core and working on fine-tuning its behavior after its recent theft and reinstallation.

The acknowledgements came quick. "Yes, sir." "Aye, sir." "Yes, ma'am."

The tactical display cleared from the viewscreen, replaced by stars sweeping to the side as Voyager changed course and accelerated toward the call for help that someone sent blindly into the void.

_Hopefully we'll get there in time to make a difference_, Janeway thought.

* * *

There was no response to any communication attempts, and there was even some small discussion during their approach whether there would be anyone there when they arrived or if it was some sort of automated transmission sent by a machine made by people who went extinct millennia ago, which had happened to them twice since reaching the Delta Quadrant. However, when they reached the system and came out of warp, the situation became much clearer.

"That ship is enormous," Chakotay said, looking at the viewscreen, duly impressed.

"That ship is impressive," Paris added.

"At first I thought it was an asteroid," Kim admitted.

"Few asteroids move at three percent of light speed," Paris responded.

"The ship is five thousand four hundred twenty-four meters long, with a volume of twenty-nine point six cubic kilometers," Tuvok reported. "I am reading approximately seventy-four thousand life signs, but the radiation is interfering with our sensors."

Monitoring from engineering, B'Elanna Torres said, "I'm not sure what to make of their engines, but something's definitely gone wrong. It's spewing out an increasing amount of hyperonic radiation."

"Hyperonic radiation?" Kim blurted out. "That will eventually kill everyone on the ship if they don't get the leak under control."

Paris added, "It will also prevent transporters from working."

"We couldn't evacuate that many people even if transporters were working," Kim said.

"As you were, gentlemen," Janeway said, not harshly, but not wanting them to get sidetracked on details. She stood and took a few steps toward the viewscreen. "Open hailing frequencies."

Tuvok tapped a few buttons, then said, "Channel open."

Janeway nodded and raised her voice, probably unnecessarily but the habit seemed to persist in captains across Starfleet. "This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. We have received your distress call and stand ready to render assistance. Please respond."

There was a tense silence as they waited for a response. Janeway was close to saying something else when Tuvok announced, "Incoming message, audio only."

"On speaker."

There was a burst of static as the message began, sounding slightly distorted, possibly due to the radiation. "This is Vindajmor of the Cershinkord," came a male voice, sounding composed, but with an underlying hint of panic. "We are receiving your message and are in need of immediate assistance. We have a runaway reaction in our coradyne reactor and it has fused the ejector system. If the reaction is not stopped, it will either explode, or release enough radiation to poison us all. Can you assist us?"

"We will do our best, Vindajmor," Janeway said, not repeating the second part of the identification provided because she wasn't sure she could remember it well enough to pronounce it correctly. He hardly seemed likely to be concerned about that sort of minutia at the moment, anyway. "I need to consult with our engineers. One moment, please." She turned to Tuvok, who muted the connection.

"I'm not familiar with a coradyne reactor," she admitted. "Anyone?"

"Never heard of it," Chakotay admitted.

"Doesn't ring any bells," added Torres.

Then Seven Of Nine's voice sounded over the comm. "I am familiar with this reaction type. The Borg encountered a pre-warp civilization that used it as a power source. It is quite efficient but carries a high risk of exactly this sort of runaway reaction and was deemed unsuitable for future utilization."

Janeway pushed down a moment of discomfort at the thought that the species in question probably didn't exist anymore and focused on what was in her control, using the knowledge from that incident to do what she could now. "Do you know how to get the reaction under control?"

"Affirmative," Seven said. "It is difficult but not impossible. I will need to make preparations and modify some equipment. It will take approximately eight minutes."

"Do it," Janeway ordered. "Then select your team and report with them to Commander Chakotay in the shuttlebay. Tuvok, unmute." She paused for a moment, then spoke to Vindajmor. "We believe we can assist. We will need to send an engineering team to your ship. Is there a port or docking bay we can shuttle to?"

"Yes, yes," Vindajmor said, definite relief in his voice. "There's a docking bay near the reactor. You should be in line-of-sight. Pordintow, active the outer lights on Bay A-3."

A moment later, Kim called out, "I see it. The bay is large enough to hold a shuttlecraft easily."

Janeway nodded. "We should have a shuttle on its way in ten minutes."

There was a brief silence, then a confused, "Minutes?"

"Ah," Janeway said. Translating units of time could be tricky sometimes until the universal translator had a mutual frame of reference. "That's six hundred seconds. Tuvok, transmit a running five-second tick as a reference."

"Thank you, Captain Janeway," Vindajmor said. "We await your shuttle."

She nodded. "We will contact you again when our shuttle launches. Voyager out." She paused for just a moment, then contacted sickbay. "Doctor, we're sending the current status reports to you. We will likely need anti-radiation treatments for the repair crews, and there may be a need for medical assistance among the crew of the ship we've encountered."

There was a brief silence as the Doctor scanned the reports, then said simply, "Acknowledged. We'll be as prepared as we can. Sickbay out."

And finally there was a moment to breathe. The source of the distress call had been found, the cause of the problem positively identified, a plan had been determined and was being executed, and now there was a period of waiting before the repair crews departed.

Not the Janeway intended to do nothing, but for the moment there was no urgency to act immediately, which meant there was time to get a better idea of the big picture. She looked at the ship on the viewscreen and narrowed her eyes in thought. The ship was nothing special to look at. It was, honestly, rather hideous. The hull was brown and grey, mottled by spots where it tarnished toward black. The ship was asymmetrical, looking like it had started out with a simple cylindrical core that came to an angled point at the front, with four propulsion units mounted directly to the aft of the core, only to late have various additional modules and storage units glommed on semi-randomly. There was a hint of something designed with aesthetics in mind at the core, but at some point that had been jettisoned for expediency's sake, and the result looked nominally functional but fundamentally flawed. With how gigantic the ship was, Janeway wondered what could have turned this enormous project into such an agglomeration of conflicting ideas.

She exhaled sharply. "Okay, tell me what we're looking at."

Tuvok responded immediately, as though he had expected this and already prepared his response. In all honestly, he probably had. "Almost the entire population of the ship is located in the front half of the core section, in an extremely small area for such a large population. Behind that, there are mostly access corridors to reach the rest of the ship, most of which consists of cargo bays. I am reading various ores and minerals, large collections of seeds and tissue samples, large manufacturing equipment..."

Paris interrupted by summarizing, "It's a generational colony ship."

Tuvok, in his imperturbable Vulcan way, looked briefly put out over being interrupted when he had a full head of steam going, but simply said, "Indeed, that appears to be the only logical conclusion."

The crew continued to scan and analyze the ship, but it quickly became clear they weren't going to learn much more about it until their engineering crew was onboard. Soon enough the call from the shuttlebay came, but there was a problem.

"Captain," Chakotay reported, "Lieutenant Torres intends to join the repair team."

Janeway saw Paris stiffen in his seat, though he didn't say anything. Not that he had to.

"Lieutenant Torres," Janeway said, "stand down."

"Sir!" Torres protested. "As chief engineer, it's my responsibility to—"

"You already admitted you are unfamiliar with their engine system. You are also proposing to go into a location with heavy radiation despite being past your due date, which I am quite certain the Doctor will not approve of." The "Neither will I" was not spoken aloud, not that it had to be. Nonetheless...

"Certainly not!" the Doctor declared. Janeway hadn't even realized he was on the line. "The health risks to your child are numerous and potentially life-threatening, and I will be happy to spend the next several hours going over every single one in excruciating detail if you attempt to fight me on this. Understood?"

Several eyebrows across the bridge rose at this threat. The Doctor's acerbic personality was well-known throughout the ship, but none of them could recall ever hearing him intentionally weaponize it like that before. There was a long moment of silence before a defeated but clearly still annoyed Torres responded, "Understood."

"You can work on figuring out this colony ship's likely destination and any alternatives should they be unable to reach it," Janeway declared, feeling the best way to help Torres was to give her something useful to do. "Repair crew may disembark when ready."

"Sixty seconds," Chakotay announced.

Janeway nodded, not that Chakotay could tell. "Safe travels, Commander."

* * *

Vindajmor of the Cershinkord stood at the small viewing area over Docking Bay A-3, watching at the peculiar shuttle glided smoothly through the port and settled on the grim gunmetal deck. The doors slid shut behind it as the bay started to pressurize. Vindajmor took the time to eye up the shuttle. He wasn't clear what the method of propulsion was. There was nothing indicating any exhaust vent. Their scans couldn't detect any energy fields surrounding the ship. It was as if the ship moved simply because they wanted it to. It was fascinating and he hoped he'd have the opportunity to learn how it worked.

The bay eventually reached pressure, and Vindajmor put his musings aside to focus on the important matters. He led two others through the two sets of pressure doors and into the bay, walking toward where he hoped the door on the shuttle was. It would be embarrassing to stand there only to have the door open on the far side of the ship.

Fortunately a door slid open as they approached, and a man stepped out. He was tall, short hair, with a tattoo on the side of his face and what appeared to be a uniform, though nothing of the sort he had ever seen before. The man stepped out of the shuttle and took a few steps toward him. "Hello," he began. "I'm Commander Chakotay, second in command on the starship Voyager."

"Vindajmor of the Cershinkord," Vindajmor replied. He indicated the woman to his left. "Ripsaulnur, security chief" he continued, and then gesturing to the man to his right, he continued, "Tyrvendrew, chief engineer." Whatever he was going to say next briefly slipped out of his mind as he noticed the next person out of the shuttle. The woman was tall and blonde and wearing what was definitely _not_ a uniform. She also had a more prominent metallic adornment on her head in almost the same place Chakotay did. Vindajmor briefly wondered what the significance was, but the two people who exited behind her, wearing uniforms like Chakotay but primarily yellow instead of red, didn't have any such adornments. Something to ask about later, assuming there was going to be a later.

"An honor to meet you," Chakotay said. "I wish it was under better circumstances." He indicated the woman who had come to a stop next to him. "This is Seven Of Nine. She is the most familiar with coradyne reactors among our crew and will be leading our repair team."

Vindajmor watched as the repair crew set a flat sheet of metal of some sort on the ground and piled various pieces of equipment on it. He was certain it would be too heavy for them to carry, but then one of the crew tapped a few buttons on a panel on the metal, and the entire thing slowly rose about two feet off the ground and hovered there, brazenly defying gravity. He tried not to gawk but was pretty sure he failed.

The woman identified as Seven Of Nine stated, "Please lead us to the coradyne reactor. I will also require access to all monitoring equipment and data logs relevant to the runaway reaction."

Tyrvendrew gave a quick glance to Vindajmor, who nodded assent. He handed a mobile data computer to Seven, who took it and immediately started reviewing it as if she'd been using one all her life.

"If you'll follow us?" Vindajmor offered, starting toward the door. The seven members of the Voyager crew followed, and Ripsaulnur followed behind, keeping an eye on the newcomers, just in case. It didn't pay for a security chief to become lax, especially with the first guests the ship had ever hosted.

And the group of ten exited the bay and started down the corridors to the engine room, hoping to prevent catastrophe.

* * *

If Ensign Eric Crowell hadn't spilled his coffee, he may have missed it completely.

He had spent the last six months on the Pathfinder Project, which had been created by Starfleet in the aftermath of the discovery that Voyager was alive and well in the Delta Quadrant, decades away from home. So far they had managed to establish regular if highly intermittent communications with the ship, but their efforts to speed the ship's return home had yielded results that could only be considered poor at best.

Still, it was an amazing story. A Starfleet ship, tens of thousands of light years away, isolated from everything they knew, no allies, no reinforcements, combining a crew of Starfleet and Maquis members... This was the stuff of which legends were made.

If only it wasn't so damn _boring_.

The fact is that as grandiose or legendary any given project is, as wonderful and noble as the goal being worked toward is, the day-to-day work of accomplishing that goal is a monotonous grind, and the Pathfinder Project was no exception. The most obscure ideas about transport and wormholes and alternate levels of subspace were addressed in far more detail than most of them deserved. Number crunching and data analyses ate up his days and haunted his nights. False starts and dead ends were not just the norm, they were almost an absolute. Even Project Watson, which allowed them eleven minutes a day to communicate with Voyager, was a fluke that they probably couldn't reproduce if they needed to. It left Crowell with the impression that he could spend his life working on this project, every single day for decades until Voyager got home under its own power, without accomplishing anything of note whatsoever.

And yet, that was no reason not to continue. It was a good cause. A brilliant cause. One that, if successful, would not only bring the crew of Voyager home, but potentially revolutionize interstellar travel forevermore, to an extent that hadn't even been hinted at since the problems with Spore Drive resulted in the technology being banned and classified; only the Pathfinder Project's goals and Admiral Owen Paris' influence had even made basic knowledge of that particular project available to them, not that it helped them get Voyager home. Still, not even transwarp had changed things as much as whatever the Pathfinder Project developed had the potential to. For all the good this project could do, Crowell had no issue with keeping at it.

Not that all the potential in the universe made the daily grind any less boring, which is why he was nursing his third cup of coffee that morning, trying to stay awake. At Paris' orders, he was reviewing information on soliton waves, not that he believed he was going to find anything he missed the first half-dozen times he'd gone over this data. He'd spent an hour going over the data set, running his analyses, and in the end he reached the same conclusions he had previously. No insight, no inspiration, no new wrinkle worth exploring. No surprise.

With a sigh, he carelessly tossed the PADD onto his desk, directly into his coffee cup, which tipped and spilled. Crowell scrambled forward and opened a desk drawer, pulling out a cloth to mop up the spill...

And out of the corner of his eye, he saw a display that was cycling various live data feeds for Project Watson show a normally static reading quickly spike and drop to normal before the screen cycled to the next reading.

Crowell paused, thinking at first that there was a short caused by coffee getting into system, which was supposed to be impossible, but it seemed impossible things happened with frightening regularity. Deciding it best to cover his bases, he turned to his main screen and pulled up the feeds that were cycling on the other display. It took less than fifteen seconds to find what he was looking for. The readings on this screen were for aspects of Project Watson that didn't change. They were static. Alerts were set if any of them dropped to zero or otherwise failed, as that could cause them to completely lose communications with Voyager, but none were ever expected to increase, so there was no flag set for that. The readings were spiking and the system wasn't set to inform anyone of it.

"Admiral Paris?" he called out. "I've got something odd here."

Admiral Paris looked up from where he was working, then stood and started across the room. "Found something in the soliton wave data?" he asked, sounding hopeful.

"No, that's a dead end. Something else. Take a look a this live data."

Admiral Paris stopped by Crowell's desk and leaned forward to see the screen more clearly, then immediately recoiled and held his arm out in distaste, his hand now covered with coffee.

"Oh, um, sorry, Admiral," Crowell stuttered, embarrassed. "I hadn't finished cleaning that yet. Here..." And he handed another cloth to the Admiral, who wiped his hand clean with surprising speed. Crowell wondered if he was a germ freak but made a mental decision never to ask. "Look at this data, though. There's a dramatic repeating spike in the subspace harmonic."

Admiral Paris looked at the data intently, considered, then called out, "Everyone, we've got a data anomaly on the subspace harmonic for Project Watson. We need to find out what's causing it. Lieutenant Barclay, contact the MIDAS array and see if they're getting this too."

Half an hour later, Pathfinder's on-duty staff met in their conference room to compile what they knew. Barclay took point. "Here's what we know so far," he summarized. "Ensign Crowell noticed extreme spikes in the subspace harmonic that allows Project Watson to function. This is a real effect, not a data artifact. As best as we can tell, this is due to an extremely unlikely convergence of events." He turned and pulled up a map of the galaxy on the screen, with a blue line connecting the MIDAS array to Voyager. "Our transmissions to Voyager are boosted through the MIDAS array, bouncing the messages off a quantum singularity to Voyager. At the current moment, Voyager's approximate position causes our signal to pass along the blue line on the map.

"Currently, along this path are both a neutron star, at the red dot, and a hypernova, at the orange dot. Both of these phenomena are known to interact with subspace, which makes our communications with Voyager possible. Normally, the interference would either be negligible because these phenomena would not be along the data stream path, or catastrophic, because they would interfere with and disrupt our signal entirely until Voyager moves far enough for the interference to become negligible." He paused to make sure everyone was following him so far, then continued.

"However, in this case the two phenomena are not disrupting the signal at all. They're enhancing it. They are combining into, essentially, constructive wave interference. They are enhancing the strength of our signal by several orders of magnitude. It's a complete fluke, but the result is real."

Admiral Paris nodded. "That's impressive, but I'm not sure how it helps us."

Ensign Crowell offered, "Better signal strength provides longer stretches of contact with Voyager."

Lieutenant Warren added, "But the situation isn't going to last. This is threading the needle on a cosmic scale. This requires almost exact precision, and simple galactic rotation is going to move these aspects out of alignment with each other within 72 hours, and then we'll be back to business as normal." She sent a different graph to the screen. "During those three days, however, we're estimating communications will be available during these times." The graph showed several windows during which communications would be possible, most for under three minutes but with one window stretching for over three hours, with a huge gap followed by a final burst of less than an hour at the end.

Paris considered this. "If nothing else, we could increase communications for family members. Eleven minutes a day is rough. Everyone on both sides will appreciate more, I'm sure. Can't say that I wouldn't like the opportunity to talk to Tom for more than eleven minutes." He glanced around the room but his gaze stopped at Barclay, who had that look he got when he had an idea but was afraid to speak it out loud. "Thoughts, Lieutenant Barclay?"

Barclay jumped slightly, then looked at the Admiral, then back at the graph on the screen.

"Spit it out," Paris ordered. "What's on your mind?"

Barclay considered his words, then slowly suggested, "If the signal is enhanced that significantly for that long... Wouldn't that mean it could hold a coherent transporter stream?"

Everyone considered this. Warren looked intrigued. "Yes, possibly," she breathed. Then she sat up straight. "Oh! You don't mean..."

Barclay nodded. "If it does, and tests confirm it's safe, we still wouldn't be able to bring Voyager back. But we could beam the entire crew home."

* * *

"Incoming transmission, Captain. It's from Commander Chakotay."

It had been over three hours since the shuttle left, and Janeway knew not to nag her officers when they were working. They'd send an update when they had one, so this message was coming eventually. Not that that made remaining patient any easier. "On speaker, Mister Tuvok," Janeway said.

"Captain," Chakotay's voice echoed across the bridge. "There's good news and bad news. The good news is, Seven was able to get the runaway reaction stopped, and radiation levels should start dropping in the next few minutes, so the threat to the ship has passed. The bad news is that, in non-technical parlance, she had to brick the engine to do it, which is going to be a huge problem for them as far as getting to their intended destination. With your permission, I'd like to invite a few of their command crew over to review their situation and see what options they might have available. Because from what Seven reports, this ship is almost certainly no longer capable of making it to their original destination."

That was an easy decision. "Approved," declared Janeway. "How long will they need to get things in order before they come over."

"Sir," said Chakotay, "they've got a crew of nearly seventy-five thousand. Their captain, Vindajmor, is ready to come over within the hour."

"Very well. Is there room in the shuttle or will we need to send a second?"

"We'll make room, sir. We haven't gotten into discussing transporters yet, and the radiation levels will be too high for another day anyway."

"Understood. If they can send navigational data in advance, we'll combine that with what we have and see what options we can provide them."

"I'll let the captain know," Chakotay said. "Recommend we have the Doctor check all of us over when we get back, just on general principles."

"Agreed. I'll alert him to meet you in the shuttlebay."

"Appreciated. Chakotay out."

Janeway turned to Tuvok. "When Chakotay sends the navigational information over, forward it to Torres. She's already working on this."

"Yes, si—" Tuvok paused as a chirp came from his console. "Incoming transmission, sir."

Janeway turned back, slightly surprised. "Really? Chakotay forgot something important, I guess."

"No, sir," Tuvok corrected her. "It's from the Pathfinder Project."

Every head on the bridge turned toward him. "Pathfinder?" Kim blurted out. "They're eight hours early. How is that possible?"

Janeway raised an eyebrow. "Let's find out. Onscreen."

The transmission was poor, filled with static and distortion, but Admiral Paris and Lieutenant Barclay were visible. "We're sending a data file," Paris said with no preamble whatsoever, barely audible. "Please confirm receipt."

"Tuvok?" Janeway asked.

After several moments, Tuvok announced, "Receipt confirmed."

"We've got it," Janeway told the admiral.

"We'll contact – zzzzzz – three hours – zzzzzzzzzzz –" In a burst of static, the transmission ended abruptly.

There was a long silence.

"Okay," drawled Tom Paris. "Any idea what that was about?"

Tuvok looked over the summary at the top of the file and froze for a moment. Then he reported, "According to this, they have determined there is a brief window where they may be able to set up a transporter link and beam Voyager's crew directly from here to Earth."

There was an even longer silence as the ramifications of this slowly sunk in.

"Well," Paris said, breaking the silence. "This is just the day for impressive surprises."

* * *

Vindajmor sat on the shuttlecraft as it returned to the starship Voyager and admitted to himself that he found what he'd seen of their crew confusing but remarkable. They had come into a desperate situation without hesitation and went to work helping to save his ship. Only one person who had come aboard seemed to have any understanding of the coradyne reactor, but the others picked up the important points quickly enough. They managed to control a runaway reaction that the ship's own crew wasn't able to handle. Their technology was well above anything he was familiar with, most obviously their control of gravity, from floating platforms to the artificial gravity on the tiny shuttlecraft, which he hadn't expected; he was worried that no one buckled in as they disembarked and gripped his seat firmly until he realized what was going on, and then hoped the others hadn't noticed.

Even more remarkable was the docking bay that the shuttle entered. The doors were wide open and people were standing on the deck watching them enter. A blue light drifted through the shuttle as it entered, and Vindajmor realized there was a force field that kept the air in but not the shuttle it. He boggled briefly at the technological know-how needed to design and build something like that. He wished he had anyone to discuss this with, but there was only enough space on the shuttle for one additional person to return to Voyager with the engineering crew, so he came by himself.

The shuttle came to rest on the deck and Chakotay was instantly at the door, opening it. He glanced back and prompted, "Vindajmor," who stood and exited directly behind the Commander. The others on the shuttle exited behind him.

Outside the shuttle, they were met by two people, a dark man with pointed ears in the same color as most of the repair crew, and a bald man in a blue uniform who was already waving a gadget he had learned to be called a tricorder at them.

"Hold still," the man said. "I need to complete a basic check before you can leave the shuttlebay."

"Vindajmor," Chakotay said, "may I introduce our Chief Of Security, Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, and our ship's doctor."

Vindajmor waited for a moment for the name, and when it didn't come, he asked, "Doctor who?"

The Doctor scowled, still waving around his tricorder. "Never heard that before," he grumbled.

"Just 'The Doctor,'" clarified Chakotay. "He's the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram."

"Hologram? So he's... I'm sorry. You're a computer program?"

The Doctor glanced up at him. "Indeed." A moment later he added, "Thank you for not saying some variation of 'You mean you're not real?'"

"Well, obviously you're real," Vindajmor stated.

"You would be amazed how many people don't grasp that simple concept." The Doctor scanned him for a moment longer, then nodded, satisfied, and moved on to the next person in line, Seven Of Nine.

Chakotay pulled Tuvok aside, but intentionally or un- spoke loud enough for Vindajmor to hear him ask, "Why isn't the Captain here?"

"Another issue came up," Tuvok responded. "We received a communication from Starfleet. There is a small window during which they may be able to establish a coherent transporter beam and transport the crew to Earth. Most of the senior staff is working the data now."

Chakotay froze for a time, then whispered, "Tell me you're not joking."

Tuvok simply looked at him.

"Of course, of course," Chakotay said. "Forget I said that. I just..." He trailed off.

"Had an illogical, emotional reaction?" Tuvok offered.

A corner of Chakotay's mouth twitched upward. "No need to get personal."

The Doctor interrupted their conversation by announcing, "You're all clear, though I expect to see you all in sickbay for a follow-up scan in three days, assuming we're still here." Ignoring the confused looks on the faces of the returning crew save Chakotay, he continued, "I must return to my duties." He turned and said, "Vindajmor," offering the man a slight bow, then turned and left the shuttledeck.

"Commander, Seven, Vindajmor," Tuvok said, "we are to report to the conference room immediately. If you'll follow me."

Walking through the ship was another revelation to Vindajmor. There were members of what were clearly different species working together without issue. The corridors were cheery and well-lit and colorful, occasionally showing signs of some prior damage, including one section where the wall panels were missing entirely and something had clearly been cobbled together out of spare parts to resolve whatever issue had occurred there. They stepped into the elevator, and it immediately shot off sideways. The whole thing was in such contrast to the grim, stark functionality, the low light and drab colors and complete lack of aesthetic of his own ship, that he felt briefly ashamed. Not that there had ever been opportunity for his ship to be designed otherwise.

A few minutes later, he entered the conference room, met Voyager's command staff, and began to tell his story.

* * *

"I am Vindajmor, in command of the colony ship Cershinkord, which to the best of our knowledge houses the last remains of the Casarrin civilization.

"Twenty-six years ago, our world was faced with a catastrophe. A meteor was discovered passing through our solar system, on a direct course for our world, Casar. We had limited spacefaring capacity. Plans were made to try to redirect or destroy the meteor, but those were projected to have a low chance of success. The meteor was moving so fast that our best ships could barely intercept it. We had barely three weeks before impact.

"While one mission was sent with all the explosives we could send into orbit to hit the meteor, a second, more desperate mission was put together. In the event that the interceptors failed, a generation ship would be prepared to try to save some small fragment of our civilization.

"It was an ugly process. We had only one experimental faster-than-light drive. It was placed on our orbital spaceyard, the Cershinkord, which still exists as the core of the ship you see outside. It was never intended to leave orbit of our world, but it was the only structure large enough for what we intended to do, even as we hoped it would never be necessary.

"Resources were gathered from across the world, launched into orbit, and placed within the Cershinkord. Some items needed special storage conditions that weren't met as the Cershinkord was never intended to house them, so many of those were simply kept in their pre-existing storage containers and grafted onto the existing structure, resulting in the rather appalling appearance the ship currently sports.

"The process by which people were selected to be placed aboard the Cershinkord before the predicted impact..." Vindajmor shuddered visibly. "It was ugly. It was not as fair or as smooth or anywhere near as dignified as it should have been. Global panic had set in. Those days were brutal. I... try not to think about them.

"The Cershinkord started away from the planet two days before the impact. I gave the order. We were not supposed to leave that early, but there were credible rumors about an armed insurrectionist group on the planet coming aboard by force. I could not risk that. I had tens of thousands of lives that I was responsible for. I would not let them die for the fear and panic of others. The invective aimed at us after that moment forced me to restrict incoming communications. I regret that, but I would not let the last words the people on my ship heard from the cradle of our species be accusations and abuse against us. Some on the ground understood and supported us. Once the others were filtered out, I let those positive ones through. I had hoped that the interceptors would resolve the situation and we could simply return home.

"They... did not. In the end, the meteor was moving too fast for any precision defense. Ultimately, they launched their entire payload almost blind at the meteor as it shot past. They successfully hit it. The detonation did little to alter the trajectory or speed of the meteor."

Here Vindajmor's almost rote recitation started to break down. "We were close enough to record the impact on video, and see the conical plume of matter and atmosphere that shot into space in the meteor's wake. We heard the terror in the voices of those left behind as the initial reports of damage to the planet came in, as the shockwaves reverberated around the globe. The verification that the planet had been breached down to the mantle. The rapid failure of all infrastructure, and the cessation of broadcasts as the power network collapsed globally. Within half an hour, all transmissions from home had ceased. The more optimistic among us still hold out hope that there may be some survivors, but that is little more than wishful thinking, and even in the event that anyone could have survived a catastrophe of that magnitude, they would have been reduced to the Stone Age.

"Our civilization is gone."

He took a moment to compose himself here, while the Voyager crew remained respectfully silent. There was nothing to be said, no words, to salve this wound, so they allowed him to handle it his own way, at his own pace.

With a deep breath, Vindajmor continued, "I now had the impossible task of taking our ship, which had never traveled faster than light and had never been designed to, to an unknown destination where we could rebuild our civilization on a new world, despite not having the ability to identify a single habitable world outside our solar system. There were multiple stars that had the potential to hold such worlds, but ultimately all we could do was take a shot in the dark.

"The star we are heading toward carries religious significance, though it is not the most promising destination scientifically. Given the state of mind of our people right after the loss of Casar, I admit I feared the backlash if I chose another destination. It is likely that I would have been deposed and the Cershinkord would have continued to this destination anyway, only under a dangerously more theocratic leadership. So I agreed to our current destination, but set a slightly indirect course. I chose our current because it passed within reasonable distance of two other star systems before reaching our potential destination, which would require seventy-eight years of travel to reach. By the end of that span of time, there would likely be none left on the Cershinkord who had ever before walked on the surface of a planet. It was my hope that these other star systems would offer potentially inhabitable worlds that we could colonize much sooner.

"The coradyne reactor successfully propelled us beyond light speed, and against all odds we set off in hopes of finding our new home. However, one of the three reactors has never behaved quite right, and two days ago it malfunctioned, kicking us back to sublight speeds and resulting in the runaway reaction that your crew so selflessly saved us from.

"You and your crew have been brilliant, Captain Janeway, and on behalf of the Casarrin people I offer you the most sincere and heartfelt thanks of my entire people. You have stopped an incident that likely would have resulted in the final extinction of our entire race. I have no right to ask more of you, but if the reports I have heard are correct we no longer have the means to reach our original destination, which means that I must ask your assistance yet again.

"We are a tired people, Captain. We are barely surviving, getting by only on the hope that we will someday reach a planet we can colonize, coasting on a vague and indeterminate notion of home that may never come to pass, and which was always unlikely to survive for an entire seventy-eight year journey. If the condition of our engines is as bad as I fear, I must request your help in finding a closer destination for us to colonize. The Casarrin people need a home that the Cershinkord can never be. Your assistance in identifying such a destination for us is desperately needed. I am sorry to have to ask more of you, but the needs of my people, and my responsibilities as their leader, require it." He considered, realized he had nothing more to say, and wrapped up with a formal "I appreciate your consideration" before sitting down.

There was a long silence while the crew contemplated and processed the enormity of what they had just been told. Janeway finally broke the silence, speaking softly. "Thank you for your openness, Vindajmor. You have come out of an incredible tragedy to face an impossible situation, one that you have been enduring for a quarter of a century. There is nothing we can do to change the past, but we can and will help you and the Casarrin people to secure a better future. We have already done some research into your prospects. Seven?"

Seven Of Nine stood and brought up a display of the Cershinkord's projected course. "With the loss of one of your engines, we believe that your original destination is out of reach. Your ship's top speed with only two engines rather than three will be barely half of what it was before, leaving what would have been another fifty-two years of travel now extended out to over one hundred. Should you choose to follow this course of action, you would be faced with another century of travel confined inside your ship, and that is assuming that you suffer no further mechanical failures. Your coradyne engines were experimental and were not intended for the decades of continuous use they have already been subjected to. Without regard to supplies, morale, encounters with other spacefaring civilizations, or other factors, speaking merely from a mechanical standpoint, I estimate your chances of making it to this destination to be under three percent."

"Worse," added Torres, who had done the research on this while confined to the ship, "while we are too far away to confirm the nature of the planets in your destination system, the star has an extremely high energy output for its size, possibly due to the presence of unusually large quantities of heavy metals in its core, meaning the chances that the system contains any planets capable of sustaining life are slim to none."

She gave Vindajmor a moment to process this, then continued, "However, we do have some good news." She stood as Seven sat down and focused the display on the system they were currently bordering. "We are currently located near a nearly ideal world, currently unnamed, for your people. I don't have any way of knowing how closely it matches your original world, but using conditions on the Cershinkord as a baseline this world has 1.16 times gravity and 1.04 times atmospheric pressure, with slightly higher concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide, surface is forty-six percent land, fifty-four percent water. Six moons, so it will take some time to determine the tidal impacts, but they aren't causing any undue tectonic activity. It has strong magnetic fields which may cause issues with some electronics until you adapt your technology but it also provides greater protection from solar radiation. The level of ultraviolet radiation that reaches the surface is still a little high compared to what our baselines estimate to be ideal for you, but nothing dangerous. And best of all, it shows signs of a thriving ecosystem but no advanced life. In short, it's an ideal world for colonization.

"From what you said, you intentionally set up this course to take you near this system and then a second one before heading toward your ultimate destination. We are too far out to determine much about the second world. The star does not give the warning signs the final one does. We can detect indirect evidence that there are planets in orbit around it but we can determine nothing about them. In all bluntness, however, there is almost no chance that it contains a world better than the one in this system. I don't make the final decision, of course, but I'd strongly recommend you colonize here."

Tom Paris added, "Very little good typically comes from catastrophic engine failure, but you broke down in the perfect place to find a new home, if you want it."

Vindajmor stared at the screen. "Can you bring up the local planet again?" he requested. A moment later the image of the planet captured by stellar cartography appeared, blue water, purple soil, shrouded in white clouds. He walked slowly up to the screen and gently, almost reverently, laid his hand upon it. "Home," he whispered. "This could be home." His eyes closed as he was overwhelmed. After all this time, the dream had the clear potential to come true.

He continued, softly. "My daughter Dajfremton is seventeen years old, her mother passed away six years ago, and she has never known life outside the Cershinkord. She has never walked on anything but metal grating, never been in a place that lacked walls or a ceiling, never known stars as anything but death held back by a thin cold hull. We have a generation that has reached adulthood without knowing life anywhere but this damnable ship. If we continue any further, we will eventually lose everyone who remembers life anywhere else, who remembers gusts of wind and sunsets and standing on the shore as the waves crash around your feet and eating a piece of fruit plucked directly from the tree. We are in danger of losing everything about ourselves, everything that makes life worth living, just to survive."

He took a moment to compose himself, then opened his eyes again, stood straight, and turned toward the Voyager crew, taking them in. "I will recommend that we settle here. I can not make the final decision myself, I would not take that choice completely out of my people's hands, but I do not anticipate much resistance, especially given the bleak reality of our chances elsewhere. If one of your crew could make a presentation for my command staff similar to the one you made for me, that would only help matters."

"We would be glad to help," Janeway agreed.

Vindajmor gave a faint smile. "Thank you, Captain. It will be nice to finally have a place to call home again, no matter what my daughter insists." At the confused looks this comment received, he clarified, "She considers the Cershinkord to be home because she's never lived anywhere else. I find that to be... an understandable error, as she has no basis for comparison. But that ship will never be my home."

Janeway offered, "We humans have a saying..."

"A saying?" echoed Vindajmor.

Tuvok somewhat unexpectedly jumped in with, "Humans are full of sayings, aphorisms, homilies, and the occasional limerick. One learns to deal with it."

"Indeed," Vindajmor said, trying to hide another smile. He didn't entirely understand what had just been said, but there was a strange warmth in the matter-of-fact delivery that he appreciated.

"The saying," Janeway continued, pretending that the interruption hadn't occurred, "says, 'Home is where the heart is.' Perhaps your heart has never been with the ship, but it's been with the people on it, so by that standard it could be considered your home, even as just a placeholder between your old world and your new one."

Vindajmor considered this, really considered this, then asked, "And do you consider Voyager to be your home?"

"No," said Kim, at the same time Neelix answered, "Yes." They turned and looked at each other in surprise.

"I live here," Kim said, "but Earth is home. No matter how long we're on this ship, Earth remains my home. Don't you consider Talax home?"

Neelix looked sad and lost in memory as he answered, "Talax hasn't been home since our government surrendered after the Haakonian slaughter of the people of Rinax. My world is still there, but my home is gone." He took a deep breath. "I have chosen Voyager as my home. I stand with this crew, and where you go, I go. I made that choice long ago. I stand by it."

There was another silence, broken this time by Kim, who said simply, "Thank you, Neelix. We're happy to have you."

After a moment, Janeway said, "Speaking of home, I hate to add a time crunch to what we're doing, Vindajmor, but we've received a message from back home, on Earth. I understand Commander Chakotay gave you a brief summary of our situation?"

"Yes, he did," Vindajmor said. "Sent over halfway across the galaxy and struggling to get home. I was taken by the story."

Janeway smiled. "Indeed. However, in the recent communication we were informed that there is a brief window during the next three days when they may be able to beam the crew back to Earth."

Vindajmor looked confused. "'Beam'?"

Paris explained, "Matter to energy transport. The target object, often a person, is converted to energy at one point and restored to matter at another. Nearly instantaneous transport, typically across thousands of kilometers."

Vindajmor considered this, looking increasingly horrified. "That... That's terrible! Every time a person uses this they're killed, and the machine just spits out a copy that thinks it's the original!"

"No," Torres corrected. "A transporter signal isn't a data file. You can't take a transporter beam and churn out copies ad infinitum. The transporter shunts the subject to a new location in its original condition, with all the parts right where they started in relation to the others. The technical details get complicated, but trust me, the transporter is no murder machine."

Vindajmor did not look particularly comforted by this, but after some consideration he allowed, "I know nothing of this technology, so I will simply have to take that on faith."

"Probably the easiest way at the moment," Janeway said. "Until the hyperonic radiation from the engine overload dissipates, we won't be able to beam to your ship, so we'll have to shuttle back. Not to rush you, but again, we may have limited time to get this all sorted out. Chakotay, Paris, accompany Vindajmor back to the Cershinkord and explain the realities of the situation. Emphasize the positives of settling here, but don't be heavy-handed. It's their choice, not ours, and they don't deserve to be manipulated."

Paris nodded. "Seven, B'Elanna, can you send me the information you used for this meeting? I'll need it for the repeat presentation."

B'Elanna said, "I'll forward all the data to the shuttle."

"Given that we are already familiar with the material," Seven said, "why not have us accompany Vindajmor?"

"Because I want you focusing on the information Starfleet just sent us," Janeway said. "You have more experience in the relevant fields so you're more important to us here." Realizing that came out a bit badly, she turned to Paris and added, "No offense."

"None taken," said Paris, though he wasn't sure about that.

* * *

Word had spread fast throughout Voyager, so Janeway was quick to address the crew and make sure that everyone was dealing with facts. She knew from experience that in the absence of facts, the void would be filled with blind speculation, and she was eager to forestall that. The only difficulty that promptly came up was that the crew's attention was split between trying to get the transporter signal worked out and packing for the trip in advance since there would be a very small transport window and they needed to be ready for it, all the while trying to set up the Cershinkord's transport to their new world, confirmation from Vindajmor that the other leaders were all for settling sooner rather than later having come through faster than expected, and making sure the Casarrins were able to safely settle there. Everyone found themselves insanely busy and on too much of an emotional high to be bothered by it.

The Cershinkord and Voyager flew in tandem into the solar system, with a Voyager engineering crew aboard the Cassarin ship to ensure any unexpected difficulties from the engines would be handled promptly. A few members of the Cassarin crew were aboard Voyager, learning more about their benefactors and teaching them about themselves in turn. It was in this state that communications with Starfleet were reestablished.

After the standard welcomes, Admiral Paris began with, "I see you have guests."

Janeway glanced to the side, where Vindajmor and his daughter Dajfremton stood, and introduced them. She gave a thirty-second summary of the situation and sent a stream of the external feed so they could see the Cershinkord.

"What a behemoth!" Lieutenant Warren blurted out.

"Carrier of over seventy-four thousand Casarrins, hopefully soon to have a new world to call home," Janeway said. "We intend to see that through. We expect to make planetfall within the next twelve hours, assist with the earliest stages of settling in, and then complete the transport home during the last window."

"Sounds like a good plan, though let's not get too far ahead of ourselves," Admiral Paris said. "We need to make sure the transport is safe first."

"Lieutenant Torres and Seven Of Nine are already in the transporter room," Janeway reported.

Torres joined the conversation with, "Test cylinder one is on the platform and ready to go."

Barclay reported, "Transporter platform is prepared and ready to receive."

Admiral Paris said, "Ready when you are."

Lieutenant Warren added, "We await your signal."

"You call it," Janeway declared to the transporter room.

"We are ready," Seven announced. "Energizing now."

The sound of the transporter engaging and the test cylinder dematerializing echoed through the communicators and between quadrants, fading out after a few seconds as normal. Everyone stiffened or sat up straighter or showed some other unnatural behavior as they all waited for the results to come in.

And then, over the viewscreen, at the Pathfinder project, the transporter engaged, and then, slightly slower than normal, a cylinder materialized on the platform. Brief elation quickly gave way to dismay as the cylinder became visible, clearly distorted, its smooth surface pockmarked and marred with several holes. The top, instead of tapering to a point, looked stretched like taffy, the metal twisted to one side, throwing the balance off. As soon as the transport ended, the cylinder tipped and fell over.

"Rematerialization successful," Barclay reported for those who couldn't see it, "but integrity failure." He approached the cylinder and scanned it with a tricorder.

"Reviewing transport logs," Crowell announced.

"Distortion of the cylinder indicates a likely breakdown of the confinement beam," Barclay reported.

Trying not to sound disappointed and nearly succeeding, Torres asked, "The problem is the confinement beam?"

Barclay answered, "That's what this pattern normally indicates, but this transport beam crossed twenty-five thousand light years, and was bounced off a singularity and directly past a neutron star and a hypernova, so I wouldn't take normal at face value just yet."

"Voyager, we're forwarding all data to you. Send yours to us as well; we'll figure this out," Admiral Paris ordered.

"Forwarding the files to the bridge now," Seven said.

"Received and forwarded," Tuvok announced.

"Don't be disappointed," Paris encouraged the Voyager crew. "We just received a transporter beam that was sent a full quarter of the way across the galaxy in one go. We're ninety percent of the way there. The hard part's already been done."

Janeway gave a faint smile. "Too true. Keep at it, everyone."

* * *

Unfortunately, the results over the next three hours were similarly tantalizing yet untenable. Every transport made it to its destination. None of them held up properly. Any attempt to send biological matter through would have been folly. The greatest moment of excitement came near the end off their three hour contact with Starfleet, as they were in the middle of another transport data analysis, and it started when Tom Paris blurted out, "What we really need is a plasmicophic ferangulator."

There were a few snickers around the bridge, and Torres said from the transporter room, "Ah, there it is. The Tom Paris solution for everything."

"Hey, a plasmicophic ferangulator would take care of this in seconds," Tom defended.

Kim said, "If we had a plasmicophic ferangulator we could have just plugged it into the warp drive and blasted home in minutes."

Seven Of Nine sounded confused as she admitted, "I am unfamiliar with this... 'plasmicophic ferangulator'."

"But you knew all about coradyne reactors," Tom said. "We know some things, you know other things. That's how being part of a crew works."

"Unless you have a plasmicophic ferangulator and don't need a crew," Lieutenant Warren said, getting into the spirit of things.

"Would probably alleviate the replicator rationing requirement as well," Kim offered.

"We could get the holodeck to stop malfunctioning," Barclay suggested.

"Yeah, dream on," Crowell muttered.

"None of this," Seven said, "is clarifying the function of a plasmicophic ferangulator."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" exploded Admiral Paris, who had briefly left the room and returned just in time to hear this last comment. "There's no such thing as a plasmicophic ferangulator! It's a nonsense term for an imaginary magical tech that can do anything you want and solve any problem. Tom, we've got very limited time to work this out, and we have no time to waste on this old nonsense. Understood?"

And just like that, the tension and frustration that had faded as the various teams joked around after Tom's comment all came crashing back down with a vengeance. There was a long silence as everyone looked everywhere except at either Paris, as if ignoring them would mean the admiral's rant didn't just happen.

"Yes, _sir_," Tom Paris said with exaggerated formality, and he returned to his work on his console, clearly refusing to look at the viewscreen. The silence continued, long and awkward, and may have continued longer if Torres hadn't hissed an expletive, one that didn't sound like it was borne of frustration or anger at what was just said.

"B'Elanna?" questioned Janeway. "Are you okay?"

"Depends on your definition," she responded. "My water just broke."

Tom Paris spun around in his seat, eyes wide.

Janeway tapped her combadge. "Bridge to sickbay. B'Elanna's in the main transporter room and is ready for delivery."

"On my way," the Doctor responded.

"Lieutenant," Seven began, as if protesting this development.

Torres retorted, "Don't look at me like that. The baby's on its way now."

"Now is not convenient," Seven said firmly.

Torres' voice was ice as she challenged, "And?"

"Seven, stand down," Janeway ordered, unsure what Seven was hoping to accomplish but knowing it could only end badly for everyone. "Tom, report to sickbay, do what you need to, and try not to make the Doctor sedate you." The last came out almost as a plea, and Tom gave a nod and a crooked half-smile as he quickly left the bridge. "Chakotay, I know everyone's working on the transporter data or the Cershinkord landing, but find a replacement helmsman and get them up here now." As Chakotay acknowledged this and checked the crew roster for another helmsman, Janeway looked back at the viewscreen, where Admiral Paris was watching with an indecipherable look on his face.

"Owen," Janeway said, perhaps breaking protocol, and Admiral Paris jumped slightly as his thoughts were pulled back to the present. "We'll let you know when we know," she assured him.

He managed a small smile and nodded. "Thank you, Kathryn."

* * *

An hour later, well after the communications window with Earth had ended, Vindajmor carefully entered the captain's ready room to find Janeway staring blankly at the screen on her desk display.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked.

Janeway looked up toward him, then blinked, refocused, and looked at him. "No, not at all. Just lost in thought."

"Understandable," Vindajmor said. "Your transporter seems a remarkable accomplishment, if a bit unreliable."

Janeway nodded. "The transporter is remarkable. Its safety record when used properly is superior to that of simply walking across a room, though we are hardly attempting to use it properly. This was uncharted territory." She considered. "Perhaps you'll get the chance to try it regularly before all is said in done."

"I think I'll pass," he said amiably.

"To each their own."

A moment passed in peaceful silence.

"What were you looking at when I came in? It seemed to have your full attention."

Janeway turned the display on her desk so he could see it. It was mostly black, with three faint bands of color arcing across the image, and in one of the bands, a single bright point of light.

"The color bands are a visual artifact from the technology used to take the picture," Janeway explained. "This is one of the most famous photographs in human history. It's called Pale Blue Dot."

Vindajmor considered the photo, and finally decided, "Accurate, comprehensive, and succinct. The ideal title for this photo."

Janeway couldn't help but chuckle, then explained, "Back before our species had gotten any further from our home planet than a few walks on our own moon, several probes were sent out to visit other planets in our solar system, and eventually continue into deep space. It was the first fly-by of our outer worlds, and sent back the greatest photos of those planets ever taken, up to that point in time.

"And as it completed its mission and was going to leave the solar system entirely, a scientist by the name of Carl Sagan suggested turning the camera around and taking a picture of Earth, a picture from further away from Earth than anything created by human hands had ever gotten before. And in time, they turned the camera and took the picture."

She tapped the screen, looking wistful. "That was it. From the outer edge of our own solar system, our entire world was nothing but a pale blue dot lost in a sea of darkness. Everything that we had ever accomplished as a species, every person who had ever lived and died, every piece of music or sculpture or other art that moved someone to tears, every person who had inspired another to make a difference, every person who killed another for loving the wrong person or taking someone else's possessions or calling god by the wrong name, every war fought, every bit of innovation and growth, every success and failure, triumph and tragedy, agony and ecstasy, every single thing that we had ever accomplished as a species over thousands of years, was contained in this single, insignificant speck."

She paused. "It was humbling, to people who truly appreciated the photo for what it showed. Even with all the problems at home we hadn't resolved, we had reached out into the stars. Something we created was unfathomably, incomprehensibly far from home, moving farther away every second, never to return. The sheer distance boggled the mind."

Janeway closed her eyes. "And I have spent seven years dreaming of ever being that close to Earth again, because to be that once-unfathomable distance from Earth would be to find ourselves, at long last, back home."

Vindajmor remained respectfully silent, correctly understanding that Janeway did not let her guard down like this very often, and not wanting to push her back inside the shell of command. After several moments, Janeway exhaled heavily and opened her eyes, though her gaze was cast down at her own hands.

After this, he finally ventured, "You do not consider this ship to be your home?"

"I can't afford to," Janeway responded without hesitation. "The crew is counting on getting home, counting on me to lead us there. If I start to think of this ship as home instead, I lose the edge I need to pursue our mission properly."

Vindajmor considered this. "That makes a great deal of sense. I fear my reasons for refusing to consider the Cershinkord to be my home are far less noble. After living on a planet for the first forty years of my life, I refuse to consider that ghastly pile of metal to be a home. Home is a planet, here or elsewhere, not this ship."

Janeway nodded. "I must admit I take some solace in the idea that even if something catastrophic happened and this ship was lost with all hands, we're still just one ship. Our species, all of the ones represented on the ship, would still go on. You, on the other hand, are in command of the entire Casarrin race."

"Oh please, don't remind me," Vindajmor answered. "I hate even thinking about that. It's not like there's much commanding going on anyway. The ship blasts through space in a straight line. We eat nutrient paste and gruel and sleep ten bunks to a room and dream of the future, and I try to keep people from losing their minds and freaking out, because even one person on a ship this packed can devastate morale, and if I fail, we go extinct. That's more than any person should ever have to bear." He paused. "I will be glad to be rid of the ship, now that we have somewhere to land and disassemble it."

"If our current plan can be salvaged," Janeway said, "we'll be leaving our ship behind. We'll have to scuttle it. Set the auto-destruct before we go, rather than leave it for others to find. This technology in the wrong hands would be dangerous." She looked at the image on the screen again. "I always imagined we'd find some wormhole or gateway and simply emerge triumphantly over Earth, and bring the ship in with full fanfare, having successfully crossed an entire galaxy. It's certainly the dramatic, big-event ending worth dreaming of." She leaned back in her chair. "Somehow, beaming home and leaving the ship behind seems almost anticlimactic. I'll take what I can get, mind you, but beaming home isn't the stuff of great stories."

"Getting your people home is the stuff of great stories," Vindajmor assured her, "no matter what happens to the ship. It's replaceable. Sure, in its way it's irreplaceable, I understand, but there are other ships. There are no other Chakotays or Seven Of Nines or Parises." He hesitated. "Actually, can I ask a question about that?"

"Ask away."

"There is a person in your crew named Paris and another you were communicating with named Paris?"

"Yes."

"Are they related?"

"Admiral Owen Paris is Tom's father."

He thought for a moment. "He gave his son two syllables?"

Janeway frowned. "I don't understand."

"You must have a different approach to naming. How do your names work?"

Janeway considered this, then gave a quick summation of general human naming customs, with the last name being the family name, and a randomly chosen first and sometimes middle name, and how names are passed from generation to generation. Vindajmor took this in, trying to understand it.

"Why are family names considered so important?" he asked.

Janeway shrugged. "They're not generally seen as being as important as they used to be, but some do take pride in being able to track a family name back for as many as a thousand years uninterrupted."

"I can track my lineage twice as far as that, but there is no need for a family name to persist for that entire span."

"Some people see it as a connection to the past, a reflection of who they were and where they came from."

"I can connect to my past as well, but the consistency of naming strikes me as absurd. You are your own person, not your ancestor. How does the actions of a person who died centuries before your birth provide even the slightest insight or reflection on you?"

Janeway considered this, then conceded, "Generally it doesn't provide any at all. It's just the way it's been done, and so it's the tradition. Other species such as the Vulcans have different approaches to naming. If you have time, perhaps Lieutenant Commander Tuvok would be willing to discuss this with you."

"Perhaps."

"So how does your naming work? Now that you've mentioned syllables, I notice that your names all seem to be three syllables, but beyond that they sound random to me."

Vindajmor nodded, on firmer ground now that he was discussing something he understood as opposed to trying to understand something alien. He appreciated Janeway's genuine interest as he explained, "Actually, they are only one-third random. Most of our names are three syllables. There are exceptions under some circumstances, but nothing we need to get into for a general discussion. When a child is born, their three syllables are determine by their parents. They retain one syllable from each parent, and a third is added for them alone. Thus, each name honors both the memory of where the individual came from, honoring each parent, as well as containing something new that is exclusive to them as their own independent person. The ordering of the syllables is arbitrary, and is usually chosen for aesthetic purposes. Some names do not sound as good if the syllables are reordered, and this is considered when naming.

"For example, I am Vindajmor. My parents were Desmorthon and Prektervin. My mother's middle syllable 'Mor' and my father's third syllable "Vin' were carried on, with 'Daj' being the new syllable for me. My daughter is Dajfremton, carrying my new syllable and my late wife Frempersyn's first syllable. It is not a rule as such but it is a generally accepted guideline that no syllable is carried for more than three consecutive generations, because more than three generations out the syllable originated from someone who likely never met the person who is being named, and therefore a piece of their name is not a reflection of the impact that person had on the newborn."

Janeway considered this for a moment. "That... makes a surprising amount of sense," she admitted. "I rather like it."

Vindajmor smiled. "I am glad. Perhaps you can make a recommendation to your people to go with the more sensible approach."

"I can file the suggestion and rest assured that the bureaucracy will lose it with unparalleled efficiency."

He laughed. "One of the few benefits of being in command was being able to jettison most of the bureaucracy with a single order. Command is lonely, but it does not need to be unnecessarily complicated as well."

Janeway's combadge beeped. "Chakotay to Janeway," came Chakotay's voice.

"Janeway here."

"We are one hour from our destination. Final preparations for the landing need to commence."

"Understood," said Janeway, who had requested the hour's notice. "Janeway out." She turned off her screen and stood. "Time to return to the Cershinkord for, hopefully, the last time."

"That," he said confidently, "is a sentiment I can whole-heartedly support. May I request a shuttle?"

"The radiation levels have dropped to normal. We can beam you over at this point."

"I appreciate the offer but decline, Captain," he said politely.

"To each their own," she said. "We'll have a shuttle prepared."

A thought occurred to Vindajmor. "The Pale Blue Dot photo."

"Yes?"

"Was the probe that took that photo ever recovered?"

Janeway shook her head. "No. It's still lost in space."

He considered this, then asked, "What was this probe that took your species' first steps outside your solar system called?"

Janeway thought about that, and an odd smile crossed her face as she made a connection she had missed before.

"The probe," she said, "was named Voyager."

Vindajmor blinked, not having expected that, then said, "I still don't understand the concept of family names, but I can't help but feel there may be some value to long-term continuity of naming."

"And you no longer have a bureaucracy to lose the recommendation you file."

"What makes you think I'm going to bother filing it at all?" he smiled.

She nodded, conceding the point in that verbal spar, and left the ready room with him to prepare for the final voyage of the Cershinkord.

* * *

Less than an hour before reaching what they hoped would become the new Casarrin homeworld, word came from sickbay that Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres were the proud parents of a daughter, Miral, named after B'Elanna's mother. There was a muted celebration on the bridge, though circumstances didn't allow for much. Vindajmor, when informed, seemed confused about using an earlier relative's first name after having just learned of the concept of family names, but didn't press the matter, having much more important things to worry about. Specifically, landing the Cershinkord.

Vindajmor's chief engineer Tyrvendrew admitted that the ship's ability to land had always been considered dodgy at best, and after the engine malfunction it was unlikely that they could safely land at all. The anarchic assembly and modifications in the last days of Casar meant that much of the outer hull was not heat protected for reentry, and though minimal efforts were made in the time since, it was always seen as a problem to be resolved right before they landed, rather than trying to add to the outer hull while traveling faster than light.

Now, however, there was no time, as the ship was damaged, and their best hope for assistance was the crew of Voyager, who were still holding out hope of being gone from this entire quadrant of the galaxy within the next twenty-four hours. Fortunately, Voyager had yet another trick up her sleeve.

"Voyager is designed for atmospheric entry and planetary landing?!" a disbelieving Vindajmor said after being informed of Voyager's plans.

"One of the few ship classes in the fleet that can do so," Janeway confirmed. "It's not practical for larger ships, and we don't do it too often because it's energy-intensive and we've rarely stayed in one place long enough to do so, but we've done it a couple of times."

Vindajmor shook his head in disbelief and said, "Your ship makes me feel like a kid banging on a rock with a stick."

"I'm sure that once you get settled in and are no longer confined to your ship, your people will enter an era of innovation," Janeway assured him. "You've been stifled by circumstance for too long not to react that way once the opportunity is there."

Vindajmor wasn't certain he agreed, but appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

Once in orbit, the Casarrins reviewed Voyager's sensor data and chose a landing spot for their settlement. It was in a tectonically inactive region, along a river, less then ten kilometers from the coast but at an elevation where they should be safe even should a tsunami strike the coastline, temperate climate... In short, it was as close to an ideal location as they were ever likely to find. Voyager's crew admitted they couldn't have chosen a better spot.

Now came the hard part: Safely landing the Cershinkord so they could start disassembling it to form their initial settlement.

The plan was for Voyager to take point on reentry, using her navigational deflectors to help protect both ships from atmospheric stresses during descent. Minimizing the friction of the atmosphere against the Cershinkord's hull should prevent the heat increase from burning the ship up.

Theoretically, anyway. Janeway was quick to stress that this had never been tried before, but they didn't have any other options that wouldn't take close to a week to develop and put into practice, and their early ideas weren't any more promising than their current plan.

And so it was that the two ships sat in orbit, preparing to land. Needing the best personnel available at every station, Tom Paris was back at the helm, though B'Elanna Torres was still in sickbay for the time being.

"The temporary thrusters mounted on the Cershinkord are operational and should be able to hold them level if their own systems can't maintain proper alignment during descent," Seven reported.

"Navigational deflectors are at on standby, ready to elevate to one hundred thirty percent," Tuvok reported. "We won't be able to maintain that for long, but we shouldn't need to."

"All stations report ready," Chakotay said.

"Very well," Janeway said. "Cershinkord, are you ready?"

"We are, Voyager," Vindajmor's voice came back.

"Very well. All hands, blue alert. Take us down."

Slowly, the two ships dropped out of the sky.

For several minutes, everything was routine, or as routine as possible when escorting such a large ship on a surface landing. The navigational deflectors did their job, lowering the wind resistance by pushing particles, in this case air, out of the ship's path. Both ships' hulls held within normal tolerance, largely due to the reduced wind resistance.

Reduced but not eliminated. Janeway was sure she'd never get used to the sound of the wind whistling across the hull of a starship.

A burst of sparks shot out of a panel at the back of the bridge. "Deflector overload," Tuvok reported. "Functionality portside is down to sixty percent and dropping.

Paris announced, "Adjusting relative position to the Cershinkord to compensate."

The ride became rougher from there, and the ship bounced and bucked as it descended toward the thin cloud cover.

"Cershinkord is starting to list," Seven reported. "Thrusters are compensating. The ship is not quite leveling out, but its pitch is not worsening."

"Approaching surface," Kim announced. "Preparing for deceleration."

From here, each ship was on its own, not really able to assist the other if something went wrong. Voyager leveled out and moved to its designated landing area, well out of the path of the much larger and less maneuverable Cershinkord.

Landing gear lowered from the bottom of the colony ship, but whatever had caused it to list on the way down was still an issue, and rather than a level touchdown, one side dipped precipitously, the ship angling dangerously far to one side before that landing gear slammed into the ground, twisting under the weight of the ship and stress at an angle it wasn't designed for. The side dragged to a halt, causing the entire ship to pivot around that point as the other side slammed into the ground as well. The ship leveled out, kicking up plumes of dirt and debris but remaining upright as it ground to a halt, just a touch off of level.

Voyager completed its landing as word came in from the Cershinkord. It was a rougher landing than they'd hoped for and there were some minor injuries, and a few major ones, but no fatalities.

"That went smoother than I expected," Chakotay admitted.

"It's about time something went our way," Kim responded.

* * *

Barclay lay in bed, unable to sleep, staring at the ceiling, running through scenario after scenario in his head, trying to figure out why the transport didn't work.

It should have worked. He knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. It should have worked. But it didn't.

He ran through the process in his head again, rapidly reviewing and discarding ideas. The transporter lock was fine, and for platform-to-platform beaming there would be no targeting issues, which meant the pattern buffer wasn't the problem either. The transition and energizing coils functioned fine. The Heisenberg compensator weren't at fault, because if they were what came through wouldn't have been nearly as cohesive as it was. The confinement beam was...

Barclay paused and focused on that. The confinement beam held the matter stream together during transport. If it degraded or failed, the result could be anything from minor errors in rematerialization to catastrophic failure, though when beaming living beings almost any degradation of the signal was catastrophic. The test materials Voyager had sent through were designed to be sensitive to that sort of problem and give clear indications of the specific problem through the errors demonstrated in their structure when they rematerialized. But the failed tests didn't yield and identifiable results, which was not surprising considering nobody had ever attempted to beam anything 25,000 light years in a single go before, to say nothing of bouncing signals off a quantum singularity. They were truly in uncharted territory here.

That didn't matter, though. It should have worked!

Barclay closed his eyes and exhaled in frustration, trying to figure it out. The confinement beam. Focus on the confinement beam. What could interfere with the integrity of the confinement beam? Various energies, including shield technologies, but there were no shields involved. The quantum singularity's influences were well documented. The increase in the subspace harmonic was well-known and well-understood, and shouldn't have caused the failures they experienced. There were indications of Krieger waves from the hypernova, which were fairly well understood even if Starfleet still hadn't figured out how to reliable generate them on command. They couldn't interfere with the confinement beam, though, because the beam was insulated against Krieger waves, and the lambda waves that could be altered into Krieger waves, ever since...

Barclay sat bolt upright in bed as he realized, finishing his thought out loud, "Ever since the Avalon upgrade three years ago!"

Voyager had been in the Delta Quadrant for seven years. They didn't have that upgrade. And the entire plan was to beam from Voyager to Earth, so they had never even considered trying to beam anything to Voyager, so they never used the upgraded transporters which would have protected the confinement beam.

All they had to do to make the transport work was initiate the transport from Starfleet's side. That was it.

"Son of a bitch," Barclay muttered to himself, throwing the covers aside and moving toward the door. He had to test this, and time was rapidly running out.

* * *

Ensign Crowell was the only person on duty at the Pathfinder Project to see Barclay burst in, race to his normal workspace, and start frantically entering information without so much as a hello. Crowell watched for a moment, a bit concerned about this uncharacteristic behavior, before deciding to remedy that.

"Hello, Reg," he ventured.

Barclay jumped slightly, not having noticed anyone else was in the room. He glanced up briefly, managed a "Hi, Eric," and turned his full attention back to his console.

_So it's going to be one of those conversations_, Crowell sighed to himself. Trying again, he began, "What's going—"

"I figured it out," Barclay interrupted.

"You... What?"

"I figured it out," he repeated. "Why the transport didn't work. We can do this, but time's working against us. I need to get this done."

Crowell blinked, surprised, but quickly focused. "Tell me everything."

Barclay nodded and gave a quick summation of what he'd realized moments earlier, then, in the moment of silence that followed, he gave Crowell an inquiring look, as though worried that he'd missed something obvious and Crowell was about to explain how this would never work.

"That's so obvious!" Crowell burst out, and Barclay felt most of the tension flow out of him. Reaching the conclusion was one thing, but having it supported by another was a form of vindication.

"But," Crowell continued, "we only have one cycle left. We can't communicate with them until the normal window, so we won't be able to link the transporters until then, so even if this works we won't know until the cycle has started, and then they'll only have, what, thirty minutes to complete their preparations and evacuate the ship?" He mused it over. "They've already begun, so it maybe enough, but still..."

Barclay shook his head. "They'll know sooner. We'll send a transport to them now."

"But they won't be expecting us, so we can't synchronize the transporters, so we can't beam anything to them."

"Yes we can," countered Barclay.

Crowell considered this for a moment, not seeing it, then asked, "How?"

Barclay answered, "The Constantinople Protocol."

Crowell blinked. Twice.

The Constantinople Protocol was a safety feature of transporters that dated back to the earliest days of their existence, when their usage was far more reckless than anything that would be accepted by current standards.

In the days when transporters were still a new technology, it was quickly discovered that, as easy as it was to safely beam to stationary targets, moving targets were a different matter altogether. Planets didn't unexpectedly move. Neither did starbases, which allowed for some givens when it came to transport coordinates. But starships did move, which made targeting massively more difficult, especially from ship to ship. The computational power just didn't exist yet to safely transport to a target when neither side was at a constant position.

To get around this until better systems were developed, receiving platforms were designed to constantly scan for incoming transporter beams and route them to the platform. This eliminated the need to precisely calculate every variable of the transport location, because the target would handle anything in range automatically. The transporter beams were usually sent directly at the ship, but ships were designed to process transporter beams within a range of several thousand kilometers.

In other words, once a transporter beam was authorized and the target confirmed, it was sent in the general direction of the target, which would catch and process it automatically, with no other safety in effect to prevent a missed transporter beam from continuing on into oblivion.

This system, as dangerous as it sounds on the surface, worked without issue for decades, until the incident on the USS Constantinople. At the time the system was first set up transporters were rare, but as they had become more commonplace and found their way out of Starfleet and into the civilian world, the assumption that all transporter beams came from known, trustworthy sources no longer held true. This fact became harsh reality when a fringe group protesting Starfleet's presence and influence on their world figured out how to exploit that system. They acquired a material that was destabilized by transport, overrode the normal safety protocols in their transporter that typically prevented materials of that nature from being dematerialized, and sent the beam toward the Constantinople. As it was designed to do, the transporter system on the ship caught the transporter beam, routed it to the main transporter room, and rematerialized it, at which point the material, completely destabilized by the transport, catastrophically exploded, killing 231 members of the crew and ultimately putting the ship into drydock for a three-year refit before she was spaceworthy again.

This attack led to massive changes in the design and safety protocols for transporters, including overrides to prevent materializing unauthorized transport beams and the ability to scan mid-transport to identify certain materials and weapons. The ability to do this was limited until the technology could be better developed, so the old-school "Catch And Grab" approach to transport was replaced with a new guideline: If an unauthorized transporter beam did not contain a living person, it would not be materialized, no exceptions. It wasn't as straightforward as that, of course; extra contingencies were set up for possible suicide bombings, among other things, but the safety protocol was created and made standard in all transporter systems from then forward. Because it was enacted as a direct result of the attack, it became known as The Constantinople Protocol.

As years passed and technology advanced, transporters eventually were able to work much more precisely, and the era of shotgun beaming ended, but the safety protocols were already in place, and there was no reason to delete them. It was easier to leave a deprecated safety protocol in place than to delete it and open a possible hole in the existing programming, so it remained, active but unused. Nobody used transporters that way anymore. Nobody beamed out without the beam-in location being verified. There was no record of anyone having attempted that sort of transport in just over a century, and most people no longer even knew it was a possibility.

And, Crowell realized, Barclay was planning to use it on an experimental transport of just over 25,000 light years. It was reckless. It was dangerous. It was absurd.

It just might work.

Crowell tried to figure out how to respond to this idea, and after a few moments thought he managed, "Gee... Wow."

Barclay raised an eyebrow at him.

Crowell scowled. "Well, words fail me. I wasn't expecting that."

Barclay nodded in acknowledgement as he backed away from the console he'd been working on. "Check my work?" he asked.

Crowell nodded and slipped into the chair, looking over Barclay's work. Disabled safety protocols on this end to allow the beaming to take place, adjusting the transport for the magnification effect, adjustments for Voyager's reported location... It all looked good to him.

Except, The Constantinople Protocol required a living person to engage, which meant...

Crowell slowly turned and looked to Barclay, who was giving a thousand-yard stare to the transporter platform.

"Reg..."

"The window is closing," Barclay whispered immediately. "We're almost out of time. We can't afford to wait. We'll lose the best chance we're ever likely to have."

"Okay then," Crowell offered, nervously running a hand through his hair. "I'll go."

Barclay shook his head. "No, it has to be me."

"'It has to be...' Oh for god's sake, Reg!" Crowell burst out. "What does that even mean? Seriously, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say, and I was here the time you stubbed your toe on the doorframe and five minutes later had convinced yourself you had Forrester-Trent Syndrome and had less than a week left to live."

Barclay flushed but didn't back down. "I've been working on this project for years. They know me. I know them." He paused. "And this is my idea. I won't have anyone else taking this risk if I'm not willing to take it myself."

Seeing the look of determination on his face and hearing the unusual steel in his voice, Crowell decided not to press the issue. He took a deep breath and conceded, "Fine then." After another moment, he grabbed a PADD off a nearby table and downloaded the relevant information about the timing and the return transport to it, everything the crew of Voyager would need. He carried it over to Barclay, who absent-mindedly took it from him without breaking eye contact with the transporter platform. Crowell slowly walked to the transporter controls and waited for Barclay to prepare himself.

It took a few moments, but Barclay finally took a deep breath and walked slowly to the platform. Climbing the three small stairs somehow took longer than he'd expected, and yet went by all too fast, and then there was no chance to stall any further. With another deep breath, he turned back to the room, looked at Crowell, and tried to look more confident than he felt.

"See you soon, Eric," he said, forcing a weak smile.

Crowell nodded. "Godspeed, Reg," he responded.

Barclay braced himself for what was coming next.

_Reginald_, he told himself, _you must be out of your goddamn mind._

"Energize," he said, and the world faded out.

* * *

Tuvok heard the alert from the bridge over his combadge.

"Unauthorized incoming transport! Security to the transporter room! Unauthorized incoming transport!"

Tuvok burst into a run even as he tapped his combadge. "Acknowledged. I'll be there in twenty seconds." He continued down the corridor and cut left at the second junction, nearly running into two surprised members of his own security force.

"Benson, MacPherson, with me," he ordered, not breaking stride as he passed them.

"Whatever you say, baby," Ensign Benson said, falling in behind the security chief.

Toby Benson and his husband Jack MacPherson were both former Maquis members who had slotted rather easily into security when the two crews merged. Neither was a smooth fit, as they demonstrated very little capacity for, or even fundamental awareness of, basic Starfleet etiquette and protocol, but they did their jobs well, and Tuvok knew that whatever eccentricities they may have—and they had many—he could certainly have worse people at his back in a fight should things turn ugly.

The three members of security burst into the transporter room with phasers drawn, Tuvok seeing a figure on the platform and immediately moving front and center to draw attention, Benson moving behind the console for cover, and MacPherson staying by the door to prevent anyone from escaping, using the wall as cover.

Recognizing the figure on the transporter, Tuvok quickly held up a hand to the others to hold, taking no aggressive action, while keeping his phaser trained on Barclay.

"Lieutenant Commander Tuvok," Barclay said unsteadily, raising his hands slightly, still clutching the PADD in his right. "Lieutenant Reginald Barclay. It's good to finally meet you." He glanced around. "Ummmm... You can lower your phasers?" he asked, making it sound rather like a plea. When that didn't work, he added, "Please?"

Tuvok said, "MacPherson," who quickly stepped into the room, phaser pointed directly at Barclay, who felt MacPherson looked a little too eager to use it. Barclay decided to stay quiet until Tuvok worked this out.

With the two guards keeping watch over Barclay, Tuvok lowered his weapon and stepped to the transport console, Benson moving aside to give him access. Tuvok brought up the transporter logs and scanned through them, checking for any anomalies that would indicate this was an imposter or other form of trickery. Barclay stood on the platform, waiting patiently.

"Is he another hologram?" MacPherson asked, remembering the last time "Barclay" had appeared on the ship.

Tuvok responded, "Definitely not."

"Just give the word and I'll blast his bollocks off," MacPherson said, his brogue thickening slightly as he waved his phaser menacingly.

"That will hardly be necessary," Tuvok said dryly, not even looking up from the console.

After a moment, MacPherson, sounding a touch plaintive, asked, "Are you sure? Because I assure you it'd be no trouble at all."

Tuvok reviewed one last file, then at last looked up and stepped around the console, addressing Barclay directly. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant," he said.

A smile crossed Barclay's face. "Thank you, sir."

Benson lowered his phaser and asked, "You beamed from Earth to here?" At Barclay's nod, he sounded genuinely impressed as he continued, "That's a hell of a thing. How'd you do that, baby?"

"A story for another time," Tuvok interrupted, "as I assume from our earlier communications that we have a rather small window of time to take care of this."

"Indeed," Barclay said, gesturing vaguely with the PADD still clutched in his hand.

Benson sounded slightly wistful as he asked, "Does this mean... We're actually going home? I mean, for real?"

Barclay smiled. "That's the plan."

Benson stared at him for a moment, then announced, "I don't normally say things like this, but if this works, I'm totally going to hug you, baby."

Barclay blinked, a bit lost about how to respond to that. "Oh. Um, well... Okay, I guess?"

"What, so that's it?" MacPherson said, sounding irritated. The others turned to him and saw he still hadn't lowered his phaser. "Just poke a couple of buttons on the console and he's all good? We just take his word for it? No questioning? No medical examination? We just believe what we want to believe?" He was getting extremely worked up and his accent was becoming more pronounced as his momentum grew. "We've met shapeshifters. Holograms. Robots. Androids. Telepathic beings who can appear as who they think we want to see. Aliens who literally steal people's faces and graft them onto themselves. But sure, a familiar face shows up and we just accept it! Good enough for Voyager! And then when the ship gets captured or crew members get kidnapped, we'll just sit around wondering why this sort of thing keeps happening to us! What the hell kind of bloody awful excuse for security do you call that?!"

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Benson nudged MacPherson hard and muttered, "Protocol, Jack."

MacPherson looked around and realized he'd just ranted about the ship's questionable security to the security chief, his superior officer. He quickly holstered his phaser, stood at attention with his eyes raised and looking at an indeterminate point above everyone's heads, and with what sounded like a touch of genuine contrition he said formally, "I mean, 'What the hell kind of bloody awful excuse for security do you call that, _sir_'?" He paused for a moment, then tilted his head toward Benson without shifting his gaze and asked, sotto voce, "Better?"

"Ideal, baby."

Tuvok closed his eyes and mouth and exhaled heavily before stating, "Thank you, ensigns. You may resume your previous duties."

"Yes sir," said Benson, grabbing MacPherson by the elbow and nearly dragging him from the room before Tuvok could change his mind. As they left, Benson muttered something inaudible to MacPherson, who groused back, "But he never answered me bloody question!" And then the doors shut, cutting off the rest of the conversation.

A moment passed in silence.

"Well," managed Barclay. "They seemed... enthusiastic."

"As good a word as any," Tuvok allowed. "We should go."

Barclay took a few steps, then realized he was about to pass Tuvok, who hadn't moved. He got the distinct impression that Tuvok was stalling so that Benson and MacPherson would be far enough away that there would be no chance of bumping into them again. He decided to wait.

After several more moments, Tuvok recomposed himself and turned to Barclay. "If you'll follow me?" Barclay nodded and followed Tuvok out of the transporter room and down the corridor, but he quickly realized they were heading away from the bridge.

"Um, Lieutenant?" he ventured. "Where exactly are we going?"

"To meet the Captain," Tuvok said, and Barclay nodded as if that answered anything. Then Tuvok, sounding almost hesitant, added, "Can I assume your presence here means the transporter issue has been resolved?"

"Absolutely," Barclay said. "When the final window opens in about four hours, we should be able to beam the entire crew home."

Tuvok's crisply efficient stride faltered briefly, but he recovered quickly. He responded, "That is most satisfactory," and whether that was all he had to say or all he was able to get out with a steady voice at that moment Barclay would never know for sure.

They descended a few decks and entered an area Barclay wasn't familiar with, but he immediately noticed the daylight shining in and the fresh air blowing through the bay they were in.

"Voyager has landed? Why?"

"To help a people in need," Tuvok answered. "Come and meet the Casarrins, and we will relay your good news to the captain."

* * *

At that moment, Captain Janeway was walking among the thousands of people who were outside a spaceship for the first time in decades, in some cases for the first time ever. The afternoon sun had given way to evening, and was approaching the horizon. The sky, previously bright blue, was starting to change colors, and Janeway grinned as she realized that many of the people around her would be seeing the first sunset of their entire lives.

The situation on the ground was a sort of organized chaos. The Cershinkord dominated the horizon in one direction, but it was the direction of the sunrise, so the sunset view would be unobstructed. Voyager sat nearby, over a kilometer distant, dwarfed by the largely empty colony ship. People had exited the ship in exhilaration and/or wonderment, leaving the cold grey halls for the open expanses of the planet's surface. Some were thrilled at the feel of soil under their feet. Some marveled at the completely different air, rich and vibrant and full of unfamiliar scents, such a contrast to the stale recirculated air they had breathed for decades. Some gaped in wonderment at the open sky above, free of ceilings or bulkheads, were others were scared of such an unfamiliar state of affairs. But throughout it all, there was a sense of victory, of success, of sheer joy that came with the end of a long trial, and accomplishing a goal that all had, on some level, feared would never come to pass. It was wonderful and glorious and infectious, and even with the disappointment of the transporter trials several hours earlier Janeway couldn't help but share in the upbeat mood.

Thousands of people were clustered around the two ships, but they had largely broken into smaller groups, some simply Casarrin, some containing members of the Voyager crew as well. Janeway wandered through, not staying in any place for too long, simply taking in the atmosphere without participating in it overmuch.

She overheard one group of young Casarrins discussing how yes, they had always been told that gravity held the atmosphere down on the planet's surface, and they never really doubted it, but experiencing it was something else entirely.

Moving on, she found a group of people listening as Neelix explained about cooking.

"You have full knowledge about the crops you brought with you, but you'll have to learn about native species as well, and which ones go together," Neelix said. "You will find that the key to cooking is in the spices. I am sure that for now, simply eating something different will be enough, but remember this for later. The main elements in a meal will have a certain flavor, but the seasonings and spices are what truly bring it alive, making the difference between a bland meal and something special. Though in the end this is all a matter of individual taste." He paused. "The Talaxian sense of taste is fairly weak, and while I am proud of what I've done on Voyager, I've found that if I spice the food properly for my tastes, it overwhelms the sense of taste of most every other species on the ship, and if I flavor it to their tastes, it's so weak it has no taste at all to me and I truly can't tell if it's made right or not."

"What?!" Janeway blurted out, alerting Neelix to her presence for the first time. "We've been traveling together for seven years and you _never thought to mention this_?!"

"Captain," Neelix said. "Um, actually, I did mention it. Kes and I told the Doctor about this shortly after we came aboard."

There was a brief moment as each of them considered that statement, and what the Doctor was like back then, and how important he would consider a detail of that nature, and what he was likely to do (or, more accurately, _not_ do) with that sort of information.

Janeway covered her face with her hands and said, "Neelix, I am going to pretend this conversation never happened. Please carry on."

She heard an uncertain, "Um, thank you, sir," behind her as she moved away.

Janeway drifted through the crowds, still listening more than participating, passed a few crew members who noticed her and even nodded in her direction but didn't join any of them, moved past another group of Casarrins playing a game of some sort that she couldn't make heads or tails of, approached another group with Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres—

Wait, B'Elanna was out here? Didn't she just go into labor like eight hours ago? Janeway did a double-take, but sure enough B'Elanna was engaged in a discussion of some sort with the Casarrin engineer Tyrvendrew. Janeway just shook her head at yet another example of utterly insane Klingon physiology. Sometimes she was convinced that you could dismember a Klingon and dump the body in a ditch somewhere, and within twenty minutes the Klingon would walk it off, track down their assailant, and storm into their house waving around a sword and declaring a seven-generation blood feud.

Then she decided that being dismembered was solid grounds for declaring a blood feud.

Then she decided that once this current situation was resolved, she was going to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

Well, whatever. It made sense not to bring Miral out onto an unexplored planet this quickly, and surely the Doctor was caring for her in sickbay, and if Tom and B'Elanna and the Doctor had all signed off on this, she was hardly going to barge in and gainsay them.

Janeway eventually reached the people she had intended to meet up with. Vindajmor and his daughter Dajfremton stood on the edge of the crowd, accompanied by Chakotay. Holding Dajfremton's hand was six-year-old Naomi Wildman, the first child to be born on Voyager. Her mother Samantha Wildman also stood with the group, which contained several Casarrins Janeway didn't recognize.

Vindajmor acknowledged Janeway's arrival and thanked her for being present, and they waited in silence, watching until the sun just dipped below the horizon. Once it did, Vindajmor activated his communications device. It was used aboard the Cershinkord to contact individual people, and in emergencies could be activated for all people on the ship simultaneously, functioning as a public address system. This was how he was using it now, as it was a far more reasonable way to address the people spread out across such a large area than setting up a speaker and blasting his voice out loud enough to be heard a kilometer away. Seven Of Nine had easily patched the signal into Voyager's combadge system, so Vindajmor was able to address everyone on the planet simultaneously.

"May I have everyone's attention, please?" VIndajmor said, and slowly the low buzz of conversation trailed off. "Today we begin a new era in the history of our people. We have found new friends, a new home, and for the first time in decades our future is promising and looking brighter with each passing moment.

"I had long planned for a speech for this moment, and I spent more time than I care to admit going over what I would say and revising it and perfecting it down to the exact words I would use, and now, now the moment is here, and I must admit that every word of what I prepared has flown completely out of my head."

A small ripple of laughter met this admission. Vindajmor let it pass, then continued, "But one thing I remember clearly is that once we found a home, once this exact moment came, I wanted us to all be here, be together, to witness First Nightfall.

"Nightfall is coming, and for those who have never witnessed a nightfall before, it will surely seem a bit intimidating, a bit frightening. And that's okay, it's okay to be nervous about this. It's something new, and it's going to look like something we used to fear.

"Aboard the Cershinkord, stars dotting the blackness of space were frightening, and dangerous. We knew that to stand openly among them was to be caught in the vacuum of space, and to die. The stars were a constant reminder of the fragility of our existence, the terribly thin hull of our ship being the only thing keeping us alive. But that barrier was something we learned to count on to protect us.

"We are now planetside. And the stars will still be visible. But we no longer need a barrier between them and us. They no longer represent a danger to us. Today, in our first hours on our new home, we stand together, we bear witness to the natural order, we learn that it is nothing to fear, as we keep our eyes on the sky and experience First Nightfall."

His speech done, Vindajmor turned off the communication system, exhaled heavily, and admitted, "What I had scripted in my head was far more eloquent than that."

"It was fine," Chakotay assured him.

The group turned their gaze to the fading sunset. The reds and oranges flaring across the sky, fading into blue and purple further away, clouds silhouetted against the horizon, the crescents of two of the planet's moons visible above the brilliant colors. The sunset could not have been more spectacular if it had been programmed on the holodeck.

"I've never seen anything like it," Dajfremton admitted softly. "Are they always this incredible?"

"No," Naomi said, "not if it's overcast. But they're incredible often enough!" Naomi had seen sunsets before, both on the holodeck and planetside, and knew what was coming. She found that the rare opportunity to play the role of knowledgeable adult to someone over three times her age had been dropped in her lap, and was relishing every second of it.

With the sun down, the sky darkened, almost imperceptibly at first, but steadily deepening, until at last it happened.

"Is that a star?" Dajfremton asked. Following her gaze, they saw a white pinprick of light in the sky, now visible in the darkened sky.

"Actually, it's the fourth planet in this system, a gas giant," Naomi responded, having researched and memorized this before leaving the ship. "It doesn't have a name yet. You'll have to come up with one."

Dajfremton said, "We don't even have a name for this world yet."

"Yes we do," countered Vindajmor, surprising his daughter. "We decided on it a few hours ago. We'll get to that in a little bit."

"I can't wait to hear it," grinned Naomi.

"Neither can I," agreed Dajfremton.

Minutes passed, and more and more dots appeared in the sky. From across the crowded fields, there were sounds of joy, of nervousness, a few cries of fear. To be open to the stars was terrifying to those who had no experience with it, but fortunately the majority of those present did and were able to keep the others calm.

In time, the last hints of daylight faded completely, and, unhindered by any form of light pollution from the ground, the sky was lit with a swath of stars, thousands of them, stretching from horizon to horizon. And the sky wasn't static. The stars didn't just sit there. They twinkled.

"It's like they're alive," said Dajfremton.

"Just atmospheric distortion," Vindajmor explained. "But I think it will help people separate the night sky a step further from the stars outside the Cershinkord's viewports."

"Is the sky always this beautiful?" whispered Dajfremton.

"Yes," Naomi assured her with a huge grin, and gave her hand another squeeze, which Dajfremton returned.

* * *

They were still soaking in the sky when Tuvok arrived with a group of crewmembers tagging along with him, including Torres, Paris, and one very unexpected guest.

"Reg?" Janeway whispered, not quite believing what she was seeing.

"Captain Janeway!" Barclay called out, rushing up to meet her. He shifted the PADD he was still carrying to his left hand and grabbed her hand with his, shaking it vigorously. "I'm so glad to finally meet you in person. Can I just say that I'm sorry I didn't figure out the transporter problem during the communication several hours ago, but I forgot about some of the upgrades that have been applied in the time since Voyager ended up out here and the key was in that, and it was so simple, I'm so sorry it took me this long to figure it out, but I—"

"Lieutenant," Tuvok interrupted, "Captain Janeway will require the use of both her arms."

Barclay froze, realizing he was still enthusiastically shaking her hand, and quickly let it go. "Sorry," he muttered. "I have a tendency to do that..."

"Tuvok," Janeway said, sounding uncertain. "Report."

"Lieutenant Barclay isolated the problem with the transporter beam and verified it worked by beaming himself from Earth to Voyager," Tuvok summarized. "At the next window two hours and thirty-one minutes from now, we should be able to beam the entire crew back to Earth."

There was a moment of silence as that sunk in.

Samantha Wildman spoke first. Barely audible, she asked, "We're going home? Really going home this time?"

Barclay grinned. "Sure looks like it. We'll just have to communicate with Earth first to set everything up, beam another test cylinder just to make sure, and we'll be ready to go."

Chakotay had to ask, "Surely you didn't have to beam yourself here to tell us that. You could have sent anything, right?"

Barclay suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

Tom Paris explained, "He shotgunned his transporter signal at us and counted on the Constantinople Protocol to reel him in. That's impressive, and I'm not easily impressed—"

Torres snorted.

"Hush up, you. The thing is, that hasn't been used in over a century."

Chakotay admitted, "I've never even heard of the Con—"

"Gentlemen," Janeway interrupted. "I'm sure those details can wait until later. We have just two and a half hours to prepare for the evacuation?"

"Indeed," Tuvok said.

Janeway nodded in acknowledgement, then turned to Vindajmor. Before she could say a word, he said, "You have to go. I understand. But if you can wait just five minutes, there is one last thing you need to be here for."

"Certainly," she quickly decided. Every second counted, but they were half-prepared to go already after the earlier attempts. Five minutes was manageable.

Vindajmor activated the communications link and called for attention. Once he had it, he told everyone, "I have two pieces of news. The first, though, should be shared not by myself but by Captain Janeway."

Janeway promptly spoke up. "I'm sure the entire crew was disappointed in the failure of our earlier efforts to establish a safe transporter link back to Earth. After our communications window closed, Lieutenant Reginald Barclay identified the problem and demonstrated the solution worked by beaming himself to Voyager." A ripple of surprise went through the crowd; even among Voyager's crew, most people hadn't realized Barclay was here. "This means that as soon as Vindajmor's other announcement is made, we will need to return to the ship immediately. Assuming no other problems crop up, we have less than three hours before we return home."

The reaction this time was stronger. Amazement, cries of surprise, definitely some joy. Possibly a bit of disappointment as well; Janeway assumed that some of the Casarrins had hoped Voyager would be able to stick around a bit longer, but that was clearly no longer an option.

Janeway stepped back and let Vindajmor take over again. "Before our benefactors from Voyager depart, however, there is one last piece of news to share. There were many options considered for the name of our new world. Certainly the name New Casar was suggested by many, but it was felt that a new world deserved a new name, not one that would forever make it an echo of what once was. Still, we kept a part of the old name, in accordance with our standard naming customs. In the end, the council unanimously agreed to the name of our new world. So I thank you all for attending First Nightfall in year zero on our new home of Castrelvoy."

With the roar of approval that came from those assembled, it took a moment for the full meaning of the name to register with Janeway. She blinked and turned toward Vindajmor, who had a knowing grin on his face.

"Castrel_voy_?" Janeway asked.

"If not for you, not only would we not be on this planet, we would not even be alive," he said. "All seventy-five thousand people on this planet owe their continued existence to you. Surely that's worth a syllable, don't you think?"

Janeway opened her mouth to say something couldn't respond, her voice failing her.

"You, and your crew," he assured her, "will never be forgotten. I hope someday our peoples can meet again, and see how we've grown, but for now, this is our thank you, and farewell."

Janeway managed to get out, "We are honored. Thank you."

Vindajmor smiled again, and after that, there was nothing more to say.

* * *

If the atmosphere on Voyager during the prior contact with Starfleet had been hopeful then disappointed, then the atmosphere now could only be described as electric. When it came to getting back to the Alpha Quadrant, there had been numerous theories and false starts before, but this time they had actual accomplishment on their side. Lieutenant Barclay had successfully transported himself 25,000 light years, making him something of a fifteen-minute celebrity, so it wasn't theory anymore. All they had to do was reverse it to beam back, and that was practically fait accompli.

Though no one was saying that out loud, because they were all terrified of jinxing it.

Voyager raced to the region indicated in the data Barclay had brought with him. The location would provide a minimal boost, less than half a percent increase in signal strength and contact duration, but every little bit counted. Crewmembers were gathering their belongings, preparing items for transport, developing schedules for prioritizing what got transported when and what items would be left behind if time ran short. Janeway had thought the surface of Castrelvoy was organized chaos, but felt the need to adjust her definition based on the manic energy the crew was displaying. People were energetic and busy and sometimes getting in each other's way and duplicating work that had already been completed, and yet everything seemed to be coming together beautifully. Janeway said nothing about any of this, because she was also terrified of jinxing it.

Paris and Torres visited sickbay so they could spend some time with Miral while the Doctor gave her a final checkup before they reached their destination and would be required back on duty. Torres felt a little guilty about taking the time for the checkup, but Paris had made it clear he wouldn't hear of her skipping it.

When they arrived, they found Miral had a small device next to her. While vaguely cubic, each side was a slightly different size and shape than the others. Each had some sort of light, be it a yellow bar, flashing green lights, wavy purple lines, and so on. Pressing different spots on it caused different lights to come on and various soft sounds to play.

"What is that and why does Miral have it?" Paris asked.

The Doctor escorted Torres to a biobed as he said, "I was hoping you could explain it to me. Seven brought it in for her, and assured me it was harmless and was proofed against various bodily fluids, but she wouldn't tell me what it does. She said it would provide audio-visual stimulation but only described it as 'Baby's First Plasmicophic Ferangulator.' Do you have any clue what that means? I looked the term up but couldn't find any references."

The new parents looked at each other in shock. "Seven?" Tom asked. "She said that?"

"That, and that your father would take a particular interest in it, though I have no idea why the admiral would care." The Doctor looked at them expectantly, awaiting an explanation.

"Seven said that," Torres echoed.

"Is she finally developing a sense of humor?" Tom wondered.

"Kind of a brutal jab, honestly," Torres considered. Then she added, "I like it."

"Well, who are we to gainsay the good Seven Of Nine when it comes to technology?"

"It is poor form to reject a gift," agreed Torres.

"I wonder when she found time to make it," Tom said, looking thoughtful.

"We'll ask later, I guess. Going to be a busy few hours," Torres decided.

They fell into a thoughtful silence.

"Thank you," the Doctor said acerbically. "That clarified everything."

* * *

Voyager reached the designated spot and dropped out of warp just eleven minutes before the communications window opened. The transporter connection was expected to become viable three minutes later and remain open for forty-seven minutes. A test cylinder was already in place in the transporter room, and now there was nothing to do but wait.

It felt like the longest eleven minutes of their lives.

Tuvok broke the silence with a simple, "Incoming communication."

Janeway glanced at Barclay, standing beside her command chair and looking a touch green, and gave him an encouraging look, then looked directly at the screen. "On screen," she ordered.

The signal came in, and the members of Pathfinder were staring back at them. Admiral Paris, Lieutenant Warren, Ensign Crowell, and others, all looking stunned.

"Barclay," Admiral Paris said, sounding a touch surprised. "You made it!"

"Um... yes," Barclay managed. "We have a rough transport schedule, if there aren't any delays."

"Transmitting now," Tuvok said.

"Acknowledging receipt," Warren said, looking over the data.

Janeway said, "We'll send another test cylinder through. If it clears, Lieutenant Barclay will beam back as well—he insisted on being the first live test. From there, we'll follow the schedule as best we can. When time is running out, we'll set the auto-destruct and beam back before scuttling the ship."

"So I should get to the transporter room now," Barclay said. He took a step toward the exit, paused, and turned back. He took a brief look around, taking in the entire bridge, then looked at Janeway. "Y'know, Captain," he said, "I'm glad I got to see this ship for myself."

Janeway smiled. "Me too. See you on the other side."

Barclay smiled back, nodded, and exited the bridge.

* * *

Given the circumstances, Janeway had the communications with Earth and the transport attempt broadcast to the entire ship. With Starfleet initiating the transporter beam, the test cylinder was beamed off Voyager, and quickly arrived at Earth. A quick but thorough scan revealed no irregularities. Barclay was transported back next, and when he came through fine and was seen on the viewscreen reporting that he had safely returned, a cheer went up through Voyager that shook the decks.

And then the evacuation commenced in earnest. Some crewmembers beamed back immediately, while others set out to remove certain items from the ship, specifically pieces of armor and equipment that had been upgraded by the Borg at various points over the prior seven years, in the hopes that Starfleet would be able to reverse engineer them. The removal was a rush job, because they refused to commit to carving out pieces of the ship until they were sure they'd be evacuating.

Nearly three quarters of the crew had been beamed to Earth, and they were making good time, so the Doctor coordinated the emptying of the ship's morgue, which held dozens of people, some of whom had been killed in the ship's initial transit to the Delta Quadrant. The Doctor himself followed, along with pieces of Borg-upgraded technology and an entire bank of data storage removed from the ship's main computer that held the bulk of the data collected during their seven years. Typically that sort of removal was a terrible idea, and data would be transferred to multiple smaller units, but given the circumstances it didn't seem worth worrying about.

* * *

On Earth, word had quickly been sent to certain interested parties once the Voyager evacuation had begun.

Despite being part of Voyager's command staff, the fact that he was an ensign, combined with the lack of need for a navigator, meant that Harry Kim was transported home before the rest of the primary bridge crew. He shook hands with various people and accepted their congratulations and their welcome homes and, as he exited the transport area and entered a large lobby that was being used as a makeshift staging area, he wondered what exactly he was supposed to do, because their detailed evacuation plans ended once they got back to Earth.

"Harry?"

Kim spun, hearing the familiar voice calling his name. "Mom?"

Harry's parents Mary and John were already rushing toward him, arms open. His mother reached him first and grabbed him in a tight hug, holding on as if terrified he would disappear again if she let him go. His father hugged them both, not as tight but just as emotionally. They simply hugged, and Harry didn't even realize that he was crying as they stood there, oblivious to everything and everyone around them, not saying anything, just being together again.

* * *

Samantha and Naomi Wildman walked with Neelix as they exited the transport area. Neelix was unfamiliar with anything here, never having been on Earth before, so as Naomi's godfather he decided to stick with the Wildmans for the time being. Lieutenant Warren had directed them to a specific corner of the lobby without explaining why, so they were working their way through the crowd toward that destination. There were Voyager crewmembers and their families and dignitaries and even a media personnel standing on the fringes, simply observing, probably due to very firm orders about interfering with reunions before being permitted access. Samantha slipped through a gap in the crowd and saw, sitting on a bench, looking nervous...

"Greskrendtregk?"

Greskrendtregk raised his head, and his eyes lit up as he saw her. "Sam?" he said, launching himself to his feet and grabbing her in a hug, lifting her off her feet and spinning her in a circle in his enthusiasm.

"Greskrendtregk!" Samantha laughed. "Put me down!"

"You," he said, "have no idea how much I have missed you, and how much I have missed being around someone who can pronounce my name correctly."

She laughed and responded, "I never had a problem with it. I just pronounce it like it's spelled. Easy as pie. After all, your name's Ktarian, not Irish."

It was Greskrendtregk's turn to laugh. Then he looked over her shoulder and froze.

Samantha turned and smiled. "Ah yes. You've talked over subspace, but it's time to finally meet. Greskrendtregk, Naomi. Naomi, meet your father." And she stepped aside.

Greskrendtregk went down on one knee to be closer to eye level with his daughter, who tentatively approached him.

"Naomi," he said.

Naomi considered for a moment, then said, "Dad," and grabbed him in a long hug. He returned it, and returned it some more, and eventually realized that she had absolutely no intention of letting go anytime soon. Not seeing any reason to make her let go, Greskrendtregk carefully stood up, lifting her with him, and held her close as he looked toward Neelix.

Samantha added, "Greskrendtregk, Naomi's godfather, Neelix."

Neelix said, "A pleasure to meet you, Greskrendtregk. I'd offer to shake your hand, but your hands seem full at the moment."

"You pronounced my name correctly. I'm impressed."

"I practiced," Neelix admitted.

"He did," Naomi chimed in. "A lot."

"Not a lot, exactly, just enough," Neelix protested.

"No, it was a lot," Naomi insisted. "You should have heard him, dad. He used to pronounce your name with two M's. Your name doesn't even have an M."

"And can you pronounce my name?"

"Of course I can," Naomi grinned. "Your name is Dad."

Greskrendtregk considered this, then said, "Yes. Yes it is."

"And I have so much to tell you," Naomi continued, arms still wrapped around him. "I helped out the crew and worked with Seven on her social skills and we had to deal with a telepathic plant that tried to eat the ship."

"I can't wait to hear about all of it," said Greskrendtregk, giving Samantha a confused look.

"And we can fill in the rest afterwards and explain what actually happened," added Samantha.

"Hey!" protested Naomi.

* * *

Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres stepped off the transporter platform, B'Elanna carefully holding Miral while Tom carried the bags holding their possessions. The others on the platform quickly exited the room, but Admiral Owen Paris' presence eliminated that as an option for them. B'Elanna tried to keep a neutral expression, expecting this was not going to go well. Tom had a tight look on his face and a stiff posture that she knew didn't suggest anything good was about to happen.

"Let's step into the next room so we don't block the transporter platform," she suggested, not giving them a chance to disagree before leaning into Tom and more or less forcing him to go along with her to prevent being knocked over. They walked through the doors the others had exited through moments earlier, with the admiral following and B'Elanna marveling at how she, the temperamental half-Klingon, was the one playing peacemaker. In the much-more-crowded lobby area, there was a much lower likelihood of an explosion between the two, since whatever happened would be much more public. She hoped that would be enough, because this had been simmering for a long, long time.

When they came to a stop, Owen looked at his son and began, "Tom."

"Admiral," Tom responded.

Owen visibly winced, but continued, "You didn't take my calls through Project Watson when they were scheduled."

Tom shrugged. "We never had anything to talk about before. I didn't see that changing."

Owen sighed. "Tom, I've had a lot of time to think about this in the years since Voyager disappeared, especially in the early years when I believed you had been killed. I looked back at the troubles we had, and I wished that things had been better." He paused. Tom said nothing. Owen continued, "I was so glad to find out that Voyager had survived, that you were still alive. I had hoped that we would have a second chance, and hopefully get along better than we had."

There was another silence, which Tom eventually filled with, "That's a nice dream."

Owen insisted, "I swore to myself in the first months after Voyager disappeared that if I could somehow get another chance, I wouldn't waste it. I would make sure that things would be different."

"Yes," Tom said dryly, "your eruption yesterday about not having time to waste on old nonsense that publicly embarrassed me in front of both Voyager and Pathfinder truly demonstrated a new you."

Owen scowled a little. "Yes, well, I got an earful about that from my people once the communication window ended. Even Barclay said something, and when he lectures you on poor social skills, that says something."

Nothing more was forthcoming, so Tom eventually asked, "So, is there going to be an apology for that?"

Owen looked completely confused. "An apology?" he echoed, not understanding at all.

Tom snorted in disgust and grabbed up the bags again, and only B'Elanna's sudden crushing grip on his forearm kept him from storming off.

"Yes, _Admiral_," B'Elanna said, impressing Tom with how much scorn she was able to pile into the word. "An apology. Because you have talked of wishing things were better and hoping they become better, but you have taken no responsibility, admitted no error, offered no apology, and demonstrated no change. Things don't become better because you simply wish them to, they become better when you identify what caused them to go bad in the first place and change those things. If you can't even admit that you bear more than zero percent of the responsibility for your issues with your son, then nothing will ever improve."

She paused, and Tom said softly, "Don't bother. He doesn't listen."

"If not now, then when?" B'Elanna demanded. "You would never give up on Miral like he's giving up on you. And like you're giving up on him." She turned back to Owen. "You know what's wrong with you? You're so deep into the Starfleet mindset that you can't see the universe any other way. You see yourself as a superior officer and you expect everyone else to do what you tell them to do, but that doesn't work in real life. The universe is not all Starfleet. You can't treat everyone like that. You can't treat family like that. You can't treat Tom like that. He's your son, not your subordinate. If you can't understand that, you don't deserve him."

Owen looked taken aback by this. His first instinct was to pull rank, but he immediately realized that was not going to get him anywhere, plus B'Elanna was technically former Maquis, not Starfleet. Then he realized that his instinct to pull rank on his own daughter-in-law was exactly the point she was trying to make to him.

He took a moment to regroup and consider his next statement carefully. "Tom, B'Elanna, it's clear that I have a long way to go. I don't want to argue or fight now." Tom looked like he was about to say something unproductive but B'Elanna gave his arm another squeeze, and instead of commenting, he winced. Owen continued, "I wanted to let you know that my wife and I have agreed that you are all welcome to stay at the family home for as long as you want. We've got the space, even if your sister returns from off-planet, and I'm sure it would be more comfortable and convenient than Starfleet housing." He paused, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. "If you're interested."

Tom remained motionless for a moment, giving no reaction whatsoever, and both Owen and B'Elanna were starting to get nervous about his response when he exhaled and gave, well, not a smile, but it wasn't the cold look he'd been sporting for the entire conversation. "That would be appreciated," Tom said. "B'Elanna and I could move into my old room, I could show her around the neighborhood, we could... What?"

Owen had a pained look on his face as he admitted, "After you were incarcerated, we had your room converted into a study. We can change it back, though."

B'Elanna winced and Tom closed his eyes, but both held reign on their temper. "I'm sure there's some guest room available for us?" Tom asked. "Somewhere?"

"Absolutely," Owen said, and then he tilted his head slightly. "Tom?"

Tom looked at his father expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

Owen gave the first genuine smile of the conversation. "Welcome home, Tom," he said, and he stepped forward and hugged his son.

Tom stiffened, not sure how to react at first, then awkwardly raised one arm to wrap around his father, not quite hugging him back, but not ignoring the hug either.

It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't reconciliation. It was barely even civility.

But it was a start, a door open to at least the opportunity of those things, and for the moment, that was enough.

* * *

Tuvok and Seven Of Nine walked through the lobby, two of the last people off Voyager. They passed various tearful and sometimes (to their eyes) emotionally overwrought reunions, passing by without disturbing anyone. Random people congratulated them, and one or two forgot themselves and tried to shake Tuvok's hand, which he politely declined. They slipped past the Wildmans and Neelix as Naomi told some story from Voyager's past that she hadn't actually been present for, saw the Delaney sisters meet up with their parents and brothers, heard Harry Kim's exasperation as he told his parents that no, he hadn't had the time to keep up with his clarinet skills.

They did pause as the passed Tom and B'Elanna. Admiral Paris asked what the toy young Miral had was, and Tom, a bit of mischief in his voice, answered, "It's a gift from Seven Of Nine. She called it Baby's First Plasmicophic Ferangulator."

Admiral Paris looked upset at this and may have been about to respond, so Seven smoothly jumped in. "Indeed. It seemed an ideal toy for a young child."

The admiral was thrown off by this interruption and looked confused, so he asked, "How so?"

Seven quickly considered, and responded, "Children need to learn good habits early. You wouldn't want your granddaughter to grow up ferangulating non-plasmicophically." And with a polite nod, she walked away, noting B'Elanna smother a smile and Tom give her a quick thumbs up behind his father's back.

She and Tuvok walked together toward the door outside, but just before they reached it a voice called out, "Annika?"

Seven and Tuvok both turned toward the voice. Seven recognized her immediately.

"Aunt Irene," she said, a touch of uncertainty in her tone. "I... had not expected anyone I knew to be here."

Irene Hansen shrugged. "Starfleet contacted family members. Pretty much everyone who could dropped everything and beamed her immediately." She took in both her niece and Tuvok. "Welcome h—" She reconsidered this. "Well, welcome to Earth."

"Thank you," Tuvok said.

"When you're able to leave," Irene continued, "I would love to take you back to your old home, Annika. You could see your old room, maybe jog some memories."

After a brief hesitation, Seven said, "I would like that," and was surprised to discover that she truly meant it.

As they talked, Tuvok slipped away from them and exited the building. The cool, humid air hit him like a wall, but he slowed his breathing to limit his moisture intake and looked up at the sky. Blue sky, yellow sun, the large expanse of water that was San Francisco Bay.

Not home. Not yet. But close, so close. He had waited seven years. He could wait a few days longer.

* * *

Twenty-five thousand light years away, only two people remained aboard the starship Voyager.

Janeway and Chakotay stood on the bridge, having just initiated the ship's auto-destruct sequence with a ten minute countdown. Communications with Pathfinder had closed and the viewscreen was currently showing the star that the newly-christened Castrelvoy orbited, at the best resolution they could manage from this distance; the planet itself wasn't visible at this range.

Chakotay checked the chronometer. "We moved fast. There's still eight minutes before the transporter window closes."

"More than enough time," Janeway said.

"Indeed. Ready to go?"

Janeway didn't respond, causing Chakotay to hesitate. "Captain?"

"Did we do good?" Janeway asked.

"Captain?" Chakotay repeated, his tone entirely different this time.

"Nine minutes to auto-destruct," the ship's computer said, dispassionately reporting on its own pending annihilation.

"I know I've made some questionable decisions out here," she said softly. "I know that I compromised on issues I probably shouldn't have compromised on. But we had a crew consisting of two groups that had been fighting each other previously. Trying to make this work was uncharted territory. Doing it in equally uncharted territory, so far from home..." She sighed.

"We wanted to survive. There's nothing wrong with that. And yet in some regions this gave us a reputation as a ship of death. I involved us in other races' disputes and wars. I took sides. Sometimes I endangered this ship and its crew, and it all seemed so right at the time, but now that it's over, I wonder. Did we really make the Delta Quadrant a better place for having passed through it? Did we improve the lives of the people we met with?

"Did I do good?"

Seven years of the loneliness of command, vented out in such a short burst. Chakotay wasn't sure how to respond, wasn't sure if he should, but then Janeway directly asked him, "What do you think?"

Chakotay slowly stepped forward until he was standing beside Janeway, then pointedly looked at the viewscreen, and the star visible on it.

"I think they'll make it," he said.

And then he quietly turned and left for the transporter room, because as far as he was concerned, that said it all, and was all the answer that was necessary.

* * *

Janeway stood alone on the bridge of her ship, and knew she would be the last person to ever see it.

"Not the way I expected this command to end," she said to the bridge, "but it's the happy ending I didn't dare hope for." She took one last look around, and even though it was pointless, she said to the empty room, to the ship itself, "Thank you for taking care of us. I'm sorry we couldn't do better for you."

And with that, she turned and left the bridge, tracing the route to the transporter room that she knew so well, remembering various moments from the specific locations, small moments of camaraderie and friendship that were nothing at the time but meant so much in retrospect, moments of severe damage or attacks within the corridors, memories good and bad piling on top of each other.

With a bittersweet smile, she walked the last steps in the corridor and entered the transporter room.

"Two minutes to auto-destruct," the ship's computer said.

Nothing for it. Time to go.

Janeway stepped onto the transporter pad, took one last look around at the ship that was all she knew for the last seven years, and tapped her combadge.

"Janeway to Pathfinder," she said. "One to beam home."

And in the standard sparkle of a transporter beam, the last person left Voyager, leaving the starship to its fate.

* * *

"Dad?"

Vindajmor pulled his gaze down from the sky and was unsurprised to see his daughter approaching him.

"Dajfremton," he acknowledged.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked him.

He gave a vague wave of his hand. "Paying my last respects to our friends," he said.

Dajfremton stepped over the low plants and vines that made navigating this area so difficult, especially at night, and sat down next to her father. He was looking up at the sky again. She was still adjusting to the stars every night. It was wonderful, but it was still not something she took for granted; every time she saw the stars she had to consciously remind herself that there was nothing to worry about, that this was natural and normal and safe.

She had tracked her father down by asking his security advisor where he was, because he knew better than to wander off without telling anyone where he'd gone. For some reason, he'd left the city and gone out into the wilderness, not into the areas they'd explored and built early paths through, but instead in the opposite direction, up some of the steeper hills in the region, through the difficult vegetation.

And here he was, sitting in the dark, about three hours before dawn, staring at the sky.

As if sensing her confusion, he checked his timepiece and said, "You'll understand in the next few minutes."

Rather than ask for clarification, she decided to accept that and be patient. Together, they stared at the settlement that was growing as their ship was slowly disassembled. There were visible gaps in the hull where some pieces were removed to be reconstituted into basic structures for living and working. That had led to some bad moments when a storm came through three days prior and water got into the ship, shorting out some electrical systems and causing a small fire. This was the sort of thing they should have considered, but lack of experience was working against them.

Already, though, it was clear that the ship was no longer spaceworthy, and never would be again. Not that it had ever been much more than functionally passable, but even those days were over. A few scattered lights were visible as the town grew and central regions had to be safe for people to work at any hour of the day and night. All in all, it was a fantastic if sometimes rough start and optimism for the future was still sky-high.

Dajfremton was still contemplating the future when a brilliant spot of light appeared in the sky, not anything approaching daylight, but enough to light up the landscape as if there were multiple full moons, which, coming from a planet with just one moon, was yet another detail of this planet they all had to get used to. The spot in the sky, bright white and expanding, appeared from their perspective to be directly above their settlement.

"Seven Of Nine told me this would be the place to see it," Vindajmor volunteered. "Well, to see it as I wanted to see it."

She stared up in awe. "Was that..."

"Almost certainly the end of Voyager," he said. "Actually, it happened several days ago, but it took a while for the light to get here."

She thought of the ship she had spent all too little time aboard, and her heart hurt at the thought of its destruction. "What a waste," she said.

"Perhaps," said Vindajmor, "though I can certainly understand them not wanting to leave a ship like that behind as abandoned property for anyone else to find."

She nodded in agreement. "Yes, that could be bad."

They watched the glow expand, already fading from white into blue as the energies dissipated. "I'm told it will be visible for about twenty minutes. It will fade long before dawn. I felt that after all they did for us, I owed it to them to bear witness."

Dajfremton gave him a glance. "I'm not sure that makes sense."

"It probably doesn't," he said, then added, "But aren't you glad to have seen this?"

She had to admit that yes, she was.

"I wanted to see it here, with the light directly above the city. I could make some flowery comment about a guiding light or people looking down on us from above, but in the end, all I can say is that it seemed appropriate.

"A remarkable people," Vindajmor continued. "So many species, so many mindsets, all working together. They gave so much of themselves, and in the end, they didn't want anything more than we did."

Dajfremton considered this, then said, "I hope they found what they were looking for. I hope they made it safely."

"Me too."

They sat in comfortable silence for a few more minutes, watching the light fade.

Finally Vindajmor pulled himself to his feet and said, "I suppose it's time. Another busy day tomorrow."

"Aren't they all?" she responded.

He laughed and said, "Yes, but there will only be a limited amount of time for being busy disassembling the ship. Then it will be new kinds of busy. Such is life."

"I can hardly wait," she said, and she was being sarcastic, but she meant it anyway.

Her father held out his hand to assist her with balance, which she took, and together they worked their way back down the hills and through the brush, their trek through the mostly unexplored wilderness taking them directly toward the pale blue dot in the sky, and home.


End file.
